time crawls on (when you're waiting for the song to start)
by the-cloud-whisperer
Summary: Book 2 of the Avatar Zuko series: "I believe people can change their lives if they want to. I believe in second chances." After being banished from the Fire Nation, Zuko struggles to learn earthbending and step into the role of the Avatar. He desperately wants to make amends for his father's crimes, but whether he will get that second chance is another question.
1. Water Around Me

**AANG**

Aang sits at the edge of the cliff, his glider beside him. Appa doesn't like lightning very much, so he's hiding in a cave nearby. For some reason that afternoon, Aang had had the strangest impulse to fly north. His mother had said, "These things happen for a reason," but what that reason was, he couldn't get out of her, so he flew with Appa until they reached the sea, and waited. And now there's a storm, and they won't be able to fly back until it's over. Bummer.

Lightning whites out the sky, and at least it's better than sitting in the dark. The stark light illuminates barren cliffs, so quickly that each flash is like a still life, paralyzed for a brief moment. The surface of the water freezes in each strike, a rolling field of ashen waves that seems to go on forever. Rain drills down in relentless sheets, moving ghost-like across the ocean and also drenching Aang to the marrow.

He sighs and stands. Whatever brought him here today doesn't seem to have stuck around. He's better off waiting it out with Appa; at least it'll be dry. He looks back at the water once more, and something catches the corner of his eye, a break in the glassy, dark monotony of the waves.

"Oh no!" Someone's far out there in the water, struggling to stay afloat. "They'll drown unless I do something!"

Appa whimpers in the cave, and Aang counts him out. He picks up his glider, but stops short as another flash of lightning forks through the sky.

 _It's only a few hundred yards. If I'm lucky, I won't be burned to cinders. Hopefully._

He spins his glider open and flies into the storm. Lightning strikes twice on his way, but not close enough for damage. The drowning person is, well, still drowning, but Aang sees him more clearly now as he flies nearer, a boy about his own age.

"Don't worry, I'm going to help you!" he shouts over the storm, but his words go unheard as the boy starts to sink. Aang sucks in a full breath, drops his glider, and propels himself into the cold water, blowing a small bubble around his head to open his eyes underwater. His target is falling steadily several yards below him. He expels part of his remaining breath and pushes himself into the ocean's depths, stretching his arms out before him, and just manages to grasp a handful of hair.

 _Oops, that's very rude of me._ He yanks all the same and makes for the surface. They're a long way from shore, or maybe it just seems longer now that he's struggling to stay afloat for two of them. Glider-surfing might have been an option, if only there was some driftwood around. All right, there's nothing for it but to swim.

A loud roar sounds above them, and a moment later, a heavy crash in the water signals the arrival of—

"Appa!" Thank goodness. He leaps into the saddle, lugging the boy's deadweight—he's not so heavy after all. "Yip yip, buddy! Let's get this guy straight home. Staying out in thunderstorms isn't the best cure for the recently drowned."

Appa takes off, and Aang turns to the unconscious boy next to him, who hasn't so much as stirred. His lungs must be filled with seawater. Aang pounds his back to no avail. Perhaps his airway is closed? Only one way to fix that.

"Sorry about this," he apologizes, dragging the boy onto his back. "It'll save your life, though. You're lucky an airbender found you." He pinches the boy's nose shut, tilts his head back, pulls his mouth open, and seals their lips together. He blows a tiny gust of air; no response.

A little more, then; still nothing. Monkey feathers! He blows a short, percussive blast, and the lips beneath his come to life. It's less romantic than it sounds because a moment later, he's liberally sprayed with coughed up seawater. The boy twists away violently, still coughing his lungs out. He finally straightens up and faces Aang.

Aang can't help noticing how… well, _lovely_ he is. There's a fragile delicacy in his sharp chin, his pale, eggshell skin that makes Aang think of moon peaches. The scar branding half his left side is jarring and speaks of two lives in one face. It looks new, still, and Aang wonders how long he's had it. Seawater drips down from his hairline; half his hair spills out of his bedraggled topknot. The fancy hairpin's a nice touch.

He opens his mouth to introduce himself, but the boy cuts him off. "Tenzin?"

Aang gapes, not at all expecting this. Ironically, it's the first time he's ever been mistaken for his own father. Most people who knew him when he was alive are dead too.

"…no, Tenzin's actually my dad. I'm Aang. Sorry if you were looking for him. What's your name, then?"

"Zuko." His voice is low and nervous with a tiny lisp.

Aang hears the hesitation in his voice and wonders at it. Is Zuko running away from something, someone associated with that name? It sounds strange on his tongue, nothing like the names of the Earth Kingdom villagers he knows. Zuko shivers and wraps his arms around himself.

"Are you cold? Here, let me just—"

Aang bends a vigorous airfront through Zuko's clothes, leaving him dry and very mussed. It's not a bad look, if he's being honest with himself. Zuko stares at him in incredulity.

"You're an airbender."

"Yep," Aang says, popping the 'p' irreverently. "Other clues include the blue arrow tattoos and the flying bison that we are currently riding to escape from the storm that nearly drowned you."

They've actually left the storm well behind them by now, but Zuko seems to have just picked up on the 'flying' bit. "What is this thing?" He leans over Appa's saddle, gawking at the bison.

"This is my sky bison Appa, and he appreciates being called Appa, not a thing." He pats Appa, as much of him as he can reach over the edge of the saddle, anyways. "You're getting a whole bushel of apples when we get home, Appa." He turns back to Zuko. "He's been my best friend since I was born. Even though he's afraid of lightning, he flew us through the storm. I was going to try and fly you back to shore myself, but it would have been pretty hard going."

"Oh. Yes, that would have been… quite difficult," Zuko says awkwardly.

"All the same, you swallowed a lot of sea water, so I'm just flying us home; it's not far. I mean, I'm not sure where's home for you, but you should at least rest the night with us."

"I… thanks. Thank you. For saving me." He twists his hands nervously together, Aang notes, as if it were terribly puzzling and unfamiliar to be rescued by a stranger from the middle of the ocean. Fair enough; he supposes that _is_ quite a strange thing to have happen to you.

"How did you know my dad, anyways? He died sixteen years ago, you would've been too young. Unless you're older than you look? Or, maybe you were frozen in an iceberg and didn't age for years? No, that doesn't make sense."

Zuko watches him curiously as he rambles. "It's a long story."

"Oh." Aang pauses. No story seems to be forthcoming. "Well, that's all right. Don't worry, we'll be back soon."

* * *

 **ZUKO**

The sky lightens, clinging to the last vestiges of grey dawn, as Appa starts to descend through the clouds. Zuko can finally see Aang more clearly. His profile as he sits calmly at the front of the saddle is just like Tenzin's, a perfectly domed head, blue arrow snaking its way down his nape and past one bare shoulder.

 _This must be who Tenzin wanted me to see. But what now? Do I just say, hey, I'm the Avatar, what do you think of that? There's no way he'd believe me. I don't even believe me. I'm still inclined to think this was all just one long fever dream, and I'll wake up back on the ship to the coal mines. It would be just my luck._

"Whatcha thinking about?" Aang asks. His grey eyes are too bright for someone who presumably hasn't slept all night. "Why are you staring? Do I have something on my face?"

 _Shoot._ "No, I was just… spacing out."

"Oh, okay. Well, we are just about here, so space in and get ready to meet everyone."

" _Everyone_?"

"By which I mean my mom and our three pet sparrowkeets. You've already met Appa."

They touch down near a small hill, on top of which stands a modest cottage. Smoke rises from the chimney.

"We do have some neighbors a few miles in that direction," Aang flails an arm in an arc that doesn't seem to indicate any direction at all, "and the village of Chin isn't far. We only go to the market occasionally, though. It's mostly just me and mom and Appa."

He jumps down from the saddle; Zuko tumbles out less gracefully and follows Aang across the field.

"Mom, I'm home, and I brought someone with me!" Aang calls out as they enter.

"Welcome home, Aang." Her voice sounds familiar. A woman with long hair, a wooden beaded necklace, and airbender tattoos (do they _all_ get them?) steps into the room. She sorts through a basket of apples as she walks, but stops short when she sees Zuko.

"Mom, this is Zuko."

His mother collapses in a faint. The apples hit the floor and roll everywhere as Aang and Zuko both rush to her side.

"Mom?! Mom!" Aang cradles her head in his lap. Zuko watches helplessly. "Come back to me, please."

She wakes slowly and finds Zuko, her slate eyes sharp with knowledge. "Avatar Zuko. You've returned."

* * *

 **ZUKO**

"So why didn't you tell me you were the Avatar?" Aang agitatedly spins an apple by its stem until it flies off and plops onto the table. Zuko stops it as it rolls towards him.

"I wasn't sure of it myself. No one ever told me. I just had a dream of Avatar Tenzin; for all I knew, he was a figment of my imagination."

"The Avatar spirit is in you, Zuko," Aang's mother—Jinora—says. She looks composed and calm as she dishes out steamed vegetables and sweet buns for each of them, but her voice wavers on Zuko's name, more accustomed to another. "I felt it, just as I did when Tenzin was alive. You are the Avatar reincarnated in the Fire Nation."

They eat in silence for a few minutes. Zuko can feel Aang's eyes on him from across the table. "What?"

"So you're a firebender."

"Yes… something wrong?"

"Well, firebenders are kind of the reason my mother and I are the only airbenders left in the world." Aang stops eating, frowning down at his bowl.

"Aang, fire is not inherently evil, nor are the people of the Fire Nation," Jinora says. "Fire Lords Sozin and Azulon wiped out the Air Nomads. Their family's legacy is terrible to behold, but as the Avatar, Zuko has the power to restore balance to the world."

Zuko's heart sinks. He is, after all, part of that very legacy that so callously destroyed an entire culture.

"You said no one told you that you were the Avatar?"

"No, I never knew. I don't know if my parents knew." His mother must have known, though; why else would she have given him Roku's headpiece? Did his father know?

 _If he knew, would he welcome me home?_

"I was banished from the Fire Nation for… offending a member of the royal family. I was to be sent to the Fire Nation's coal mining colony as punishment," Zuko explains vaguely. Of course, it's not the whole of it, but he can't exactly tell them that his father, the Fire Lord, banished him after he refused to fight an Agni Kai, can he? He pushes sliced carrots around his plate, his appetite quite evaporated. "I lost my honor along with my homeland."

"Oh child… you couldn't have done anything to deserve such a thing." Jinora leans over and touches Zuko's shoulder in comfort. "Honor isn't something you are born with and then lose. It's something you earn, and no one can take it from you."

"Just like I earned my airbending tattoos; no one can take those from me!" Aang chimes in.

"In moments like these, I sometimes wish I could," Jinora says drily, but her eyes are fond.

ZZZ

Outside in the garden, sparrowkeets chirp in an apple tree. The mid-morning sun shines warmly on them as Jinora and Zuko walk by the stream that runs near the cottage. Aang crouches a ways downstream, far enough that his energetic dishwashing is little more than background noise. Zuko had offered to help, but Jinora asked to speak with him.

"The Fire Nation holds no power over you, Zuko. The road forward for you is no longer dictated by your father, nor by your people. It is determined by you, as the Avatar."

"That means I have to master the four elements, right? I've already mastered firebending." _More or less. If you don't count lightning._ "I'm ready to move on."

"The Avatar Cycle states that you must then learn earthbending, waterbending, and finally airbending."

"Can't you teach me airbending now?"

"No, Zuko." She walks over to the apple tree and picks up a fallen branch. With it, she draws the elemental symbol for fire on the ground, wavering flames. "Fire is the element of power, free and wild. To gain discipline and strength, you must learn earthbending."

She draws the sign for earth. "Earth is the element of substance. It is enduring and unshakeable. However, the world changes with every footstep, every raindrop."

"Water is the element of change. You will learn waterbending," she draws the wave symbol, "which will be the most difficult for you, as a firebender. As your spirit becomes fluid and smooth as a river, you too will master it."

She draws three swirls. "And finally, air is the element of freedom. You will learn airbending, and when you master it, you will be able to detach yourself from worldly concerns and bring peace to yourself and to all."

"It sound so straightforward when you lay it out like that," Zuko says.

"I sense a 'but' coming."

"But… even if I do manage all that, then what? Even if I'm able to bend all four elements, how will that stop this war?"

"With some things, you will not know what to do at first. You must wait and listen before acting. Observe."

Jinora stands in silence for a moment, then suddenly whirls and slashes a sheet of air into the tree above them. Aang falls out of its branches with a surprised yell and catches himself just before hitting the ground.

"How'd you know I was there? I was being so quiet!"

"I listened for the absence of sound. Normally you are all sorts of noisy. The silence was telling."

Aang scowls, and Zuko covers his smile with one hand in amusement.

"If you've finished washing the dishes, I have another job for you."

"Anything you ask, mom! I am your humble servant."

"I want you to accompany Zuko on his journey to master the elements, and to teach him airbending when the time comes."

Aang gawps. "What?"

"I feel this is the right path. Zuko, you came here for a reason. You cannot face your task alone. Aang, you are the last airbender. You are destined to teach the Avatar, for the good of the world."

"But mom, then _you'll_ be all alone."

"Aang, I will be fine. You need to see the world, to see more than what the Fire Nation has laid waste to. Your father would have wanted this. And besides, I won't be alone. I have Pikku, Pakku, and Panku, don't I?" She raises a finger and whistles, summoning three sparrowkeets. They jostle for position on her finger.

Aang sighs and looks away. "Well, I _guess_ you're right. Come on, Zuko. You're a bit shorter than me, but if we're going to be wandering around the Earth Kingdom, you'll need some normal clothes, not Fire Nation issue."

They leave Jinora under the apple tree serenely listening to the sparrowkeets' song, but Aang is quiet.

ZZZ

Zuko lights the hearth as night falls, then sits back and watches the flames. Aang is out preparing Appa for their journey. Apparently this involves combing _all_ of Appa's fur and picking his toes. Jinora joins him by the fire. He glances over at her and wonders if airbenders ever get tired of sitting crosslegged. His own ankles start to ache after an hour or so.

"I didn't fully answer your question earlier, regarding what you must do after mastering the four elements, because in truth, I do not know. You are so much younger than those who seek to control you. You have never seen the terrors of this war, that has gone on for so long. Even before I was born, we Air Nomads were in constant fear of attack from the Fire Nation."

"I'm sorry," Zuko says. "I wish all these things had never happened." That's getting old really fast, but it's true. He has lost people to this war and to the Fire Nation too. What wouldn't he give to have them back?

"So do I." Jinora twists her fingers around her Air Nomad beads. "When you spoke with Tenzin, did he… say anything about me, by chance?"

Zuko hesitates. He hears her pain and longing, the same pain that filled his mother's voice when she left the night Fire Lord Azulon died. "He… he says he loves you very much. You and Aang both. And that he misses you. And that he'll be with you again one day," he lies.

"You don't have to make things up, Zuko. Though that much is true." Jinora smiles, if indeed the broken twist of her lips could be called a smile. "I am ailing. Even if I wished to accompany you, I could not. Tenzin died at the Southern Air Temple, and when I fled with Aang, this was the farthest I could take him. Any farther, and I feel my soul wilting. I have always been able to sense my husband's spirit, even in death."

He turns towards Jinora, desperate to stem the tears he can feel prickling even from here. "Death is not the last place you will see him." Her long hair, streaked with grey, frames her face, and he sees her with different eyes.

* * *

 **JINORA**

"Jinora."

She looks up, and there he is, no older than the day he died.

"Tenzin!"

"My love, I am so sorry. Sorry that I had to leave you, to raise Aang all alone."

"It's all right, Tenzin. He's beautiful, I wish you could see him now. He looks just like you. He's healthy and happy and… the only way he could be happier is if you were here."

"I know."

"But he's going to help your successor." Jinora smiles weakly. "I've taught him everything I know, and he has your resilience. He's going to make things right."

"Oh, Jinora. All these years, you've been so strong."

"I miss you more than I can say," and her tears do spill over now, pinging on the floor and shining, ephemeral, in the firelight. "Without you, it's like there's no air in the world, no light."

Tenzin takes her hands in his, and it feels so real, like he'd never left—

"I love you, Jinora. Don't worry about Aang. I will watch over him. As for you, take care of yourself."

Through her tear-blurred eyes, he starts to fade. "Tenzin!" she cries, but he is gone, and in his place, Zuko clasps her hands.

* * *

 **ZUKO**

"It's all right," he says, trying to ground her. He's not clear on what just happened, but he seems to have channeled Tenzin briefly. "I'm going to take care of Aang. I'll bring him back to you when this is all over, and you'll be the proudest mother ever. You'll see."

But he feels the emptiness of his words, as weightless and easy as the lies he told her just now, and the one he omitted earlier.

 _I am the son of Ozai, son of Azulon, son of Sozin, the downfall of your people. I am the monster in your nightmares, the face of your enemy._

Perhaps he can save the world. Perhaps he will damn it. Either way, it will be too late for Jinora. For his mother.

"You'll see," he whispers again, as his tears join hers on the ground. She squeezes his hands harder.

Aang finds them there, silhouetted against the fire. His mother weeps as he has never seen her do. He leaves again, unable to watch, and goes to sleep with Appa.

* * *

 **A/N:** Writing notes for this chapter here: archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/16649341


	2. Air Above Me

**ZUKO**

"Head east toward the mountains," Jinora instructs. "Earthbenders are common in the towns of the foothills."

"Thank you, Jinora." Zuko bows.

"Goodbye, Mom!" Blink and you'd miss it, but there's a waver in Aang's voice that Zuko hates to hear.

"Goodbye, children. May the winds speed your travels."

Appa launches into the air at a yip-yip from Aang, and they watch and wave until Jinora is no longer visible from the air. Zuko pointedly looks away until he's sure the danger has passed.

"All right, time to look for an earthbending master for the Avatar. Should be no problem," Aang's usual cheer sounds forced past a lump of tears. Zuko is familiar with the feeling.

"It's okay to miss her, you know. I miss mine too." He doesn't know what makes him say it.

"What, my mom? Oh, no, I'm fine. We just left, I've hardly had time to miss her yet," Aang blusters.

Zuko settles into the back of the saddle, arms stretched out along the rim, and frowns skeptically at Aang.

"It's just, she's always been with me, and now I'm not there for her." Aang flops down on his back. "It's all right, though. You can't learn the elements by yourself, and it'll take you ages to go anywhere without Appa."

"Hm." It's cold up in the air; Zuko wonders how Aang manages without sleeves and just a light robe all the time. The olive-green shirt and pants Aang gave him for 'going incognito' are a bit roomy, and the wind chills him. Without thinking, he blows out a tiny breath of fire. Instantly, Aang sits up again. Zuko raises his eyebrows at the abrupt movement.

"Oh, nothing," Aang mutters. "Only maybe don't do that while we're in town."

"Whoever ends up teaching me will have to know I'm the Avatar, and by default a firebender," Zuko points out.

"I know, and there's nothing wrong with that, but some people are a bit on edge about it. You know, with the war and everything. They'll think, he's a firebender, and his whole family are firebenders, and _all_ the firebenders are coming to destroy us, oh no—point is, people just jump to conclusions," Aang rambles.

"I get it." Zuko rubs his hands together instead; that's allowed, isn't it? "My mother wasn't a firebender. Everyone else in my family is."

"What happened to your mother?"

"She just...left, one day, five years ago, after my grandfather died. This is all I have of her." He touches Roku's headpiece. "I never found out what became of her."

"Oh…I'm sorry." Aang lies back down, crossing his legs at the knee. "Tell me about the rest of your family. Did you have any siblings? I've always only had Mom."

Zuko tells him about Azula and Lu Ten in as much detail as he can without revealing himself. It's nice, for the first time in ages, talking to someone who doesn't know him as Zuko the failure, or Zuko the banished prince, but just as himself. Aang listens closely, watching Zuko like he's going to disappear in a moment, like he's hope in a candle flame.

ZZZ

"You should learn some airbending before we get to the mountains," Aang says that night when they stop to rest.

Zuko looks up at the airbender where he roosts on Appa's head. "Why? Jinora said I need to learn earthbending first."

"Well, yes, but unless you know at least two elements to begin with, no one's going to believe you're the Avatar. My mom could tell, but everyone else will just think you're a firebender trying to pull the wool over their eyes."

 _Wow, that's flattering._ "And to what end?"

Aang shrugs. "There's always something. Anyways, if you learn airbending, we can both pretend to be surviving airbenders traveling around."

He's got a point. "All right then. How do I start?"

Aang hops down from Appa and sits down facing Zuko. "Focus on your chi." He breathes in deeply; Zuko does the same. "You _do_ know what chi is and how to feel it, right?"

"Yes, I do," Zuko says, somewhat affronted. "I'm a firebender, not some… uncultured heathen."

"Just making sure. So, concentrate your chi in your hands. Feel it spiraling around, like a tidepool when the tide changes."

"I thought we were doing airbending, not waterbending." Zuko's not sure he would have attempted this kind of facetiousness with Uncle. It's… enlivening, almost like with Lu Ten in ages past. Almost.

"Focus! Air, not water, regardless of whatever metaphors I choose. Now, watch closely." Aang circles his hands around each other, palms facing in opposite directions, and a small sphere of turbulent air coalesces between them. He directs it up one arm, over the back of his neck, and down to the opposite hand like a juggler, balancing it on the tip of one finger.

"Wow, I think I saw that one at the circus when I was a kid. Nice trick!" Aang clenches his teeth in mock-exasperation, and before Zuko can react, he's been blown into a backwards somersault that he definitely wouldn't have been able to attempt without a huge blast of air to the solar plexus. He lands on what feels like the hardest patch of earth around. Aang grins triumphantly down at him but helps him to his feet.

"I think the last time I saw _that_ one was when Appa tripped himself trying to get away from a beehive he knocked over." Behind them, Appa growls at the mention of that embarrassing instance. "Now, practice! And take off the fancy headpiece thingy, it's obstructing your ability to feel the airflow."

Zuko reflexively touches Roku's headpiece. "How is that obstructing airflow? It's just holding my hair in place."

"Exactly. You need to maximize the surface area that's in contact with the air, to feel what the air's doing and follow it. Airbending is less about directing air to do what you want it to do, and more about aligning your chi with the currents already in the air."

 _Fine._ Somewhat petulantly, he takes the headpiece off as commanded and stows it away in his pocket. "Okay. Let's do this."

It's been a while (nine years, to be precise) since he's had to learn to bend a new element, and if Zuko wanted to be really precise, it's been less than two days since he knew he was capable of learning another element.

"Don't try so hard," Aang admonishes, watching Zuko deliver punch after punch to the air in vain, trying to maintain a coherent disc of air for longer than two seconds. "It's called airbending, not airbreaking. You have to let the air go where it wants to go but gradually convince it to follow your chi."

 _Go with the flow. He and Uncle would get along splendidly._

"The air's—being—very—stubborn!" Zuko reports. "How do you airbenders get anything done with this philosophy? You can't just passively get the whole world to follow your wishes. You'd be destroyed."

Aang leans against Appa's side and frowns at the ground. "Yes, as a matter of fact…"

Zuko realizes what has been left unsaid. "Ah. Sorry, I…"

"It's alright," Aang says, a little strained. "I think… I'll turn in for the night. Have fun!" He ducks behind Appa, seemingly almost embarrassed.

 _Well, that went well._ Zuko sighs and continues practicing as quietly as he can several paces away. It's no use, though; the air is slippery as oil in his fingers and refuses to be shaped. At least the rock beneath his head serving as a pillow is tangible and tactile. He falls asleep dreaming of bees, entire tornadoes full of bees that he attempts to bend away from him with no success. The bees don't sting, though, merely buzz benignly around him.

ZZZ

"How are you not freezing?"

Aang smiles beatifically at Zuko, the tension of the previous night forgotten as they fly through the dense cloud cover. "Airbender," he replies succinctly. "You'll learn to do the same, but focus on your air cushion for now." He tosses a stone they collected for the purpose up in the air, slightly to the left and fore of their flight path.

Zuko reacts quickly, sending a disc of concentrated air spinning towards it, but the stone plummets to the ground far below, just like the dozens of others he's failed to catch today. Somehow, he just can't gather the air currents together quickly enough.

"Ugh, this isn't working. Maybe I can't focus because I'm freezing, and you won't let me firebend to keep myself warm."

"I didn't say you couldn't," Aang protests.

"No, you just loudly implied it. Plus you get in such a tizzy at the sight of fire. _Maybe_ you should teach me to stay warm using airbending instead, Sifu Airhead."

Aang rolls his eyes. "I _will_ get you back for that. Anyways, it's a bit too advanced for you right now." He adjusts the reins, and Appa descends a few hundred feet before leveling out at a warmer height. "Happy?"

"I'm never happy." Zuko thinks he might be taking this childish gambit too far, but it's lovely to see Aang's features lit up in amusement, instead of dark with grief. "Where do all these hateful breezes come from, anyways? Are they sent by some vengeful air spirit to spite me?"

Aang laughs. "Silly, there's no such thing as air spirits."

"So how did the Air Nomads figure out how to bend air?"

"The original airbenders were sky bison. We learned airbending from them. It's also how they fly."

Zuko wonders how sky bison could teach humans to bend air without being able to talk. Perhaps the early sky bison could bend air through their vocal cords in such a way as to approximate human speech? But then again, dragons couldn't talk either, and they taught humans to bend fire.

And look where that got them. Killed by Sozin's arrogance, he thinks bitterly. Does everything his family touches turn to dust?

"Can human airbenders fly?" he asks, the question suddenly obvious to him.

"Funny you should ask," Aang says. "No, we can't fly in the sense that Appa does, without anything to help, although there are some legends about ancient gurus who could. Regular airbenders like me can glide. It's close enough to flying."

"Glide? How?"

"Let me show you." He picks up his staff from the floor of the saddle, and Zuko hardly has time to think or say anything (or maybe you know, _stop_ the crazy airbender from falling to his apparent untimely death) before Aang jumps out into thin air. The staff twirls, too fast to focus on, and suddenly under Zuko's wide eyes, Aang is sailing alongside Appa with ease. Two pairs of fan-shaped wings sprout from the staff, streamlining his body and wafting him blissfully along.

He's _actually flying._

* * *

 **AANG**

It's heaven or as close to it as humans get, dipping and rising with the currents without rain or gales to sway him. He makes a few loops, some upside-down corkscrews, nothing too fancy. Zuko might jump at the excuse to call him Sifu Airhead again. Speaking of which…

He looks back at Zuko, who clings to the edge of the saddle, as close to Aang as he can be without falling out. He's smiling, which Aang actually hasn't seen from him yet. It stretches through his whole face, his honey-bright eyes almost translucent in the morning sun and the scar crinkled more than usual and his lips parted in shock and awe, and Aang should probably be focusing less on Zuko's lips and more on _not flying into that bird—_

Phew, that was a close one. The snowy batgoose veers away, screeching its disapproval at him—its own fault for venturing this high, anyways. After a few minutes, he returns to Zuko, who affects indifference. "That was… pretty neat," he admits reluctantly.

"Oh, is that how we're going to be?" Aang takes the reins again, his back to Zuko, and steers Appa slightly back on course. Insufferable firebender and his inexplicable need to play it cool. _I can work with that._

"So… how long before I can do that too?" Zuko relents and asks. From the corner of his eye, Aang can see him looking hopefully at the glider staff, the glowing spark of enthusiasm for flying back in his eyes.

"Nowhere close to soon," Aang dismisses. "There are tons of forms you've got to learn first. Starting with _air cushion_." He tosses another rock out, which the distracted firebender misses entirely.

Zuko pouts. It's utterly _adorable_.

AAA

On the afternoon of the third day, they arrive at a small town on the outskirts of the mountains. It's nestled in a rich, verdant valley, and white stone walls rise around it, only as high as a grown man's head. It looks like it's never seen the ravages of fire. Everyone at the bustling marketplace looks happy to be there, faces unlined by news of the war.

"Do you suppose we'll find an earthbending teacher here?" At a stall across the street, a woman in minutely embroidered robes fusses over a display of fine china while holding her daughter's hand. The girl taps her foot impatiently. "It all seems very… peaceful."

"I'm pretty sure _they_ had to learn from someone," Zuko says, pointing towards the end of the lane. A low fence separates the market from a wide, unpaved open yard, where a group of kids around their age are playing ball— _using earthbending._

They approach and watch the game, riveted by the boys' easy command of the earth. Every time the ball, itself a packed sphere of clay, nearly touches the ground, a spike of earth shoots up under the feet of one of the players, knocking it back into the air. One boy headbutts the ball violently, sending it up nearly twenty feet in the air, and he doesn't seem to be seeing stars.

"That's amazing," Zuko breathes. "Don't you think so, Aang?"

"Mmhm," Aang responds, only partly paying attention now. The impatient girl and her mother seem to have concluded their shopping trip and are walking up the street in their direction. The girl stops, a few paces from where they stand. She cocks her head, as if enthralled by listening to the sounds of the earth soccer game.

"I want to go play with those kids," she says. "Please, Mom, can I?"

"Don't be silly, Toph, how can you play without seeing? Besides, even if you could, you haven't studied nearly enough earthbending to be at their level."

Aang looks as closely as he dares. The girl's sage green eyes do seem to be glazed over, like milky water, and she doesn't look at her mother when she speaks.

"I'm better than you think I am. I'd show them all how to really play the game."

 _Interesting. An earthbender who can't see?_

"Zuko—" he starts, but suddenly the ground beneath them shakes, and everything happens very fast.

* * *

 **ZUKO**

Zuko leans on the fence as they earthbend the ball all around the arena. There aren't any goalposts; the objective seems to be to keep the ball off the ground for as long as possible. Aang seems distracted, but this is what they came here for. Now if only he could find out who taught them all. Aang says his name, and he starts to tear his eyes away from the game, but suddenly, one boy spikes the ball much higher into the air than any of the previous plays. It sails right over the fence, past them, and oh wait it's going to hit—

Without thinking, he throws out his hands, and this time, the air cushion swirls from his palms and gracefully envelops the ball just before it ends its trajectory against the skull of an irate girl standing nearby. Her mother gasps and pulls her away as the earth ball gyrates in midair before dropping safely to the ground.

"Nice one, Zuko," Aang says from beside him, far too nonchalantly for a sifu who's just witnessed his student finally perfect a move, under duress no less. _Tough love, what have I done to deserve this?_

The girl herself looks supremely disgruntled and kicks one elegantly shoed foot towards the ball. It flies right back over the fence, with more force than anyone would expect from a tiny girl in a fancy dress. _So… she's an earthbender too?_

Her mother doesn't seem to have noticed the display as she approaches them, her eyes filled with profound relief. "Oh, thank goodness, you saved Toph! She would have been crushed if it weren't for you! How did you do that?"

Aang answers for him. "He's an airbender, of course! I should know, I taught him everything he knows about airbending. Zuko here's actually a beginner; he got lucky just now."

"You're airbenders?" she exclaims loudly enough for the entire marketplace to hear.

 _Oh dear._

ZZZ

In Poppy Beifong's eyes, saving Toph's life merits an invitation to dinner, so they follow her among covert whispers and not-so-covert stares from behind shop tills. Zuko turns his gaze towards the ground to avoid their eyes. The Fire Nation doesn't seem to have any presence in this town, but he'd rather not find out the hard way.

He glowers at Aang. "What happened to incognito, Sifu Airhead?" he mutters.

"Stop calling me that," Aang says blithely. "Anyways, be happy, we just got ourselves a free meal."

Toph ignores them the whole time, staring staidly at… well, nothing. She doesn't exhibit any uncertainty while walking, though. It's as if she can see where she's going. Zuko can't say the same.

"I hope you like hotpot," Toph's father says at dinner. Lao Beifong is thin and drawn with a weak mustache, and doesn't look like the type of man with enough gusto to _like_ anything, much less a hearty, steaming hotpot.

"Fresh seafood is so hard to come by in Gaoling," Poppy explains. "We're lucky we can afford to have it imported." She motions to one of the servants, who uses spark rocks to light a fire under the sunken pot in the center of the table.

"It _looks_ wonderful," Aang says. "Sadly, as airbenders, we live a strictly vegetarian lifestyle, so Zuko and I will just stick to the tofu and vegetables."

Zuko, who has been preparing to upend an entire platter of exquisitely shelled prawns into the hotpot, puts it down _. This is payback for 'Sifu Airhead', isn't it_? He glares at Aang, who smirks mischievously; across the table, Toph does too, though her face is carven as stone again moments later.

"So, how did you two come to be in Gaoling?" Poppy inquires. "I was given to think that there weren't any more airbenders in these parts." _In the world,_ remains understood but unspoken.

"Ah, well, there are a few of us still," Zuko fabricates, sensing that Aang might not want to field this one. "We've been lying low, staying away from the war as much as possible. Aang and I lived near the coast most of our lives." It _is_ true; Zuko spent most of his life on a series of islands. "We've decided to explore the world for a bit, though, at least, the parts of it not occupied by the Fire Nation."

"And in your opinion, how much longer will the war last?" Lao asks.

"Not much longer, if we airbenders have anything to say about it," Aang says breezily.

Poppy laughs politely. "Oh, I'm sure of it," she says. "Saving lives one at a time, starting with our own Toph! To think that she even entertained the idea of playing ball when she can barely earthbend."

Toph is decidedly not smiling now, placing morsel after dainty morsel in her mouth with angry swipes of her chopsticks. A servant refills her bowl for her from the hotpot.

"Blow on it, it's too hot for her," Lao orders.

"Oh no, Zuko can take care of that," Aang offers. He elbows Zuko. "Saving lives, remember?"

 _This is the price I pay for putting up with him,_ Zuko laments. He concentrates and sends a small funnel of air to whoosh over Toph's bowl. Toph's parents applaud with restraint; she herself wrinkles her nose in distaste.

He needs to keep Aang from making any more trouble. "So, how long have you been learning earthbending, Toph?"

"Since I was six."

"No, Toph, you've been training with Master Yu since you were nine, remember?" her father corrects her.

"Master Yu? Who's that?" Zuko asks. _Maybe he'll be able to teach me._

"Master Yu is Toph's earthbending teacher, one of the best in the land. He runs an academy right here in Gaoling."

"Wow, he sounds great." Aang sounds exaggeratedly overenthusiastic about Master Yu for someone who can't earthbend. "We should go check it out tomorrow, Zuko."

"Why would you two have need of an earthbending teacher?" Poppy wonders.

"Because, uh, well—" Zuko starts, hitting dead ends as to how they're going to get out of this one. He needn't have wondered.

"Because Zuko's the Avatar, of course, and he needs to learn earthbending."

 _So much for staying out of trouble._

Poppy laughs politely. "Oh, very funny, Aang! So it's true that airbenders have unparalleled senses of humor."

"As a matter of fact, we do. But it's actually true that Zuko is the Avatar. Observe."

Aang sucks in a breath and sneezes like a true airbender, targeting the base of the hotpot. The fire underneath stutters and goes out. "Goodness, how clumsy of me, not to mention unhygienic," Aang says in a theatrical bluster. "Zuko, would you mind doing us a spot of firebending so that the prawns you're so desperate to eat don't go cold?"

Everyone stops eating. Zuko turns to Aang. _Just do it,_ he mouths. _Trust me._

 _What about 'not doing firebending in front of other people'?_ Zuko relights the fire with a quick, slightly shaky thrust of his left palm.

"What, no applause this time?" Aang asks cheekily of a silent audience. Lao gapes; Poppy covers her mouth in shock. Toph… smiles delicately around her chopsticks once more.

"Aang's telling the truth," Zuko finally says. Time for straight talk. "I am the Avatar, and foremost a firebender." His heart is racing. This could go very badly. "But I'm not here on the Fire Lord's orders. Your family and your town are safe. I'm only looking for someone to teach me earthbending, I promise you."

Neither of Toph's parents seem capable of regaining their speech. "Or… we can just leave now. We've imposed upon your hospitality for far too long as it is." Zuko rises from his seat, but Toph beats him to the punch.

"Sit down, Mr. Avatar, and finish your dinner," she says, punctuating the order by slamming Zuko's chair into the backs of his knees, forcing him to sit again. Poppy and Lao look on, uncomprehending.

"Well, Avatar…," Poppy begins uncertainly. "It's an honor to have you in our home. Still, this is very… unexpected for us. Please, do forgive any misgiving we've expressed."

 _And just like that, the walls go up._ Aloud, he says, "It's not a problem." The servants seem to judge the situation resolved, as they start taking dishes away and bringing out dessert. An idea occurs to him.

"By the way, I should mention that in addition to being a strict vegetarian, Aang is also deathly allergic to eggs. You should keep that well away from him," he says, nodding at the platter of egg custards one of the servants is on the verge of offering to Aang. "In fact, I'll take that off your hands."

Aang fumes silently as Zuko takes careful bites of the creamy, delicate custard. Dessert tastes sweetest when stolen from someone else's mouth. It has to be _savored_.

* * *

 **A/N:** Writing notes: archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/16962267


	3. Interlude: Phoenix Dreams

**IROH**

Ozai sets aside the missive from Commander Zhao, not even bothering to put on a façade of mourning. His only son has been lost to the unmerciful sea. Iroh pauses at the irony: fire could not kill Zuko, but water did, the element whose tribes the Fire Nation has so decimated. Perhaps it is the ocean spirit's misguided revenge.

He thinks of his own son, buried in an unmarked grave in Ba Sing Se. He thinks of Zuko, sinking in the bottomless water. No, he cannot say he knows how Ozai feels right now, not when his brother sits calmly at the Fire Lord's elegant administrative desk (who knew he ever left the torrid sequestration of the throne room?) and continues his next breath without the slightest hitch:

"We cannot dwell on the past. Azula's destiny is now the focus of the royal family."

Iroh clears his throat, swallows his pain for later. "Yes, Azula carries the hopes of our family as the crown princess. She will be your perfect heir. Zhao has trained her well, both in the ways of the firebending and of the war room." Too well, it turns out, and Zuko paid the price.

"Indeed, but I speak of more than that. As the Avatar, she carries the hopes of the nation."

Iroh wonders if he has heard correctly. Azula, the Avatar?

"Are you sure, Ozai? The Fire Sages have made no declarations on the identity of the Avatar yet."

"It was foretold since the day of my children's birth: one of them would be revealed as the Avatar. It is sixteen years to the day since Avatar Tenzin died. If Zuko were his successor, would he have acted so ignominiously as he has of late, and died choking on his last breath?" Ozai sneers malevolently.

Iroh thinks of whom he would like to see choking on their last breath, but stills his impulse to answer in kind. It wouldn't take a journey to the Spirit World to suspect that Ozai is severely mistaken, but Iroh decides not to let that on just yet. He can work with this misconception.

"I have charged Commander Zhao with the task of searching for an appropriate earthbending teacher for Azula. She will have to master all four elements within a year, but I am confident of her abilities."

"Yes, you're right. Avatar Azula—it's fitting. I'm not surprised; she's a natural at bending." He isn't technically lying.

He leaves his brother devising more plans for Azula's training and the conquest of the Earth Kingdom and the world. It's time to visit some old friends.

* * *

 **AZULA**

She lets her topknot down and picks up the jade comb from Ba Sing Se. In the mirror, she watches the Avatar's hands comb her long hair out, hands that can apparently bend not only fire, but earth, water, and air, too. How, though? The thought is so foreign to her; she's never felt any connection with the other elements. It doesn't make sense; fire is within her. She can't even dream of pouring herself into any other element, because that's what firebending is to her: a receptacle of power, an extension of herself. An uncontested crown, one day, but not one of _four_ elements in her hands.

But if it weren't true, why did Father declare to the entire Fire Nation that his daughter is the Avatar? His word is law, after all. It has to be true.

The palace grounds are filled with row upon row of tables seating hundreds of guests, all nobles and officials important enough to be represented at the banquet. It's quieter than one would expect from such a huge party, as if the feasters fear their Fire Lord's wrath should they raise their voices. Servants flit silently between the tables, and even the glow of lanterns crisscrossing the late summer evening skyline is faint and uncertain.

Azula sits with her father at the highest table, elevated on a dais above all the rest…lonelier than all the rest. Somehow, it's come to this—they are the only two remaining members of the royal family. Well, Uncle counts, barely, and who knows why he hasn't seen fit to attend Azula's sixteenth birthday party.

She knows, though. If Zuko were here, it would be his party too. Her father would have had to raise a toast to them both as is the tradition. She can picture his mouth's indifferent line puckering into a frown when shaping Zuko's name. Really, her brother's timing is to be lauded. Disgraced, defeated, and banished from the Fire Nation, all just days shy of turning sixteen.

"It's a shame your brother couldn't join us on this happy day," her father remarks at this moment, almost looking like he means it.

Azula laughs shortly. "I'm sure he regrets it too."

"He would, if he still had breath to do so."

She glances at her father, puzzled by his words. _Is Zuko…?_

"I had word from Commander Zhao earlier this afternoon. He reported that your brother was lost at sea last night, during a heavy storm. He couldn't have survived." Ozai's voice is passionless, even vaguely pleased. He traces the stem of his wineglass, up and down, looking out across the banquet grounds contemplatively. It's as if the new of his son's demise has no effect whatsoever on him.

 _He's dead. Zuko's… dead._ The words resonate in her head, the syllables lengthening, stretching time out as she stares at her empty plate. Relief breaks through her haze first. It's silly that any part of her ever thought that somehow Zuko might one day return as crown prince, that her father might retract his decree.

A sliver of regret pokes at her heart, but she plucks it out quickly; she's better off without him. Who's to say it wouldn't have ended this way later on in their lives? Their paths were always meant to diverge and had already begun, Zuko's now descended into obscurity and darkness.

She turns away from the mirror. The room is lit only by a solitary candle on her dresser, and she stubs her toe crossing the room to bed. "Ow!"

She looks around first for a servant to berate for leaving things in her path—there are none around at this hour—then at what she's actually run into: a stone incense burner, which she recognizes as one of the birthday presents delivered earlier today, from the governor of such-and-such province that she doesn't care to remember. It's a rickety piece comprised of a phoenix standing regally over the incense dish, as if guarding Azula's prayers to her ancestors or the spirits or whomever people traditionally burn remembrances to. Ozai had always dismissed such rites as groundless and foolish, so Azula never learned them, content instead to let ashes and dust lie undisturbed, forgotten. Her cousin, her grandfather, her mother, and now her brother.

"Even if he were here with us today, his presence would pale in comparison to yours, Azula, with everything you have achieved and have yet to achieve," Ozai says. "You are fated to accomplish what no Fire Lord has ever done before."

This is high praise from her father. Azula racks her brains, wondering what she's done lately to earn such approval. Nothing stands out to her especially, but perhaps he's just speaking in a general sense? In any case, grief can definitely wait, perhaps indefinitely.

Ozai addresses the crowd towards the end of the night. "The royal family has had cause to lament, of late." That's unexpected; he's always been adept at dismissing and ignoring the things that displease him, Zuko especially. Azula is lucky she's never been one of these things.

"But this year, we will rise from the embers of our grief and weariness, to greater heights than ever before. This is the year Sozin's Comet returns to grant us its power. By next summer's end, the world will bow to the Fire Nation, greatest among all the peoples of the earth. It is only fitting, more so than she even knows yet, that my daughter should come of age this year and stand at my side to lead us into a new age of victory and prosperity."

More so than she even knows? Azula doesn't like not knowing things. First Zuko's death, then… whatever this is.

"Azula, rise." She does.

"Let it be known that my daughter, Crown Princess Azula, is the Avatar."

After a long, shocked silence, everyone had bowed—as they should, Azula snipes—and her father had even deigned to sit down, leaving her to stand alone, dizzyingly high above everyone. The Fire Sages had not been present, which she attributes to Ozai's disdain for their spiritual wishy-washiness, and just as well. She doubts she could have taken much more pomp and circumstance. Being named Avatar isn't exactly an everyday affair. Afterwards, she'd barely heard Father saying something about Commander Zhao and an earthbending teacher before the banquet was over.

It could be useful, she concedes, nudging the incense burner with her unstubbed foot. Earth and stone are everywhere, ready to be molded and used. It couldn't hurt to try. She places one hand on the phoenix's head, imagines it spreading its wings in flight. The grainy rock beneath her palm feels cold and unresponsive, nothing at all like fire's warm crackle. Undeterred, she jabs two fingers at it, willing it to do something: crack in two, slide across the floor, crumble into dust…

Nothing.

She can't be _that_ bad at earthbending, can she? Even without any training, the Avatar should be able to do _some_ basic bending. She tries again and again, each time meeting the same result: stone-still silence. How can she be the Avatar if she can't even make a stone move? Finally, she flops down on the ground, wondering if a glaring contest with the phoenix might win its cooperation.

What would Zuko do if he were the Avatar but couldn't earthbend? Throw a knife at the unmoved phoenix or burst into tears, probably. They would be in vain, though. Statues cannot cry, cannot lend a gentle ear or kind words. In that regard, they are like her father. She remembers the Agni Kai, Zuko cringing on the floor, Ozai's every monumental step towards him like a heartless golem bearing judgment and death in a lit brazier.

Whoever sent the burner thoughtfully included some incense sticks. She lights one with a pinch of stiff fingers and sets it at a slant in the groove of the shallow stone dish. Sandalwood and jasmine fragrance rises to the ceiling. She stares at the ephemeral trail of smoke blossoming before her like souls of the past, souls who are in the past because she put them there.

 _Why don't you enjoy a cup of tea with us instead?_

Why didn't I?

Eventually, she rises and goes to bed. In the half-life between waking and dreaming, she sees the smoke condense into Zuko as she saw him last, pale and broken, but still…her brother.

Grief always catches up in the end.

* * *

 **A/N:** Notes: archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/17441938


	4. Fire Within Me

**ZUKO**

"Hey."

Zuko startles slightly at the sound of her voice. They both look around to see Toph standing in the doorway.

"Where are you going in that?" Aang says. She's changed out of her fancy, fluttery robes, now decked out in plain, loose-fitting clothes, green and yellow with matching bracelets accenting her wrists and ankles. Her feet are bare.

"To find you an earthbending master."

"What, _now_?" Zuko asks.

"Yes, _now_. Unless you want to wait until morning for Master Yu's Academy for Stupid Mudslingers to open."

"But your father—"

"Doesn't know a thing." She steps into the room and closes the door behind her. "Now come on." She walks over to the fireplace.

Aang and Zuko glance at each other. What's to lose? Toph plants her palms against the stone grate and opens up a hole leading into the dark underground. They follow her down a tunnel that she bends out of the very foundation of the house, it seems, and emerge outside the walls of the estate. It closes seamlessly as they climb out to the surface.

"That's…wow. You're pretty good at this," Aang says.

Toph snorts. "You haven't seen the least of it yet."

Zuko realizes something. " _You_ made the ball come your way this afternoon to prove to your mother that you could earthbend."

"Wow, only four hours late on the uptake! Good job, we'll make an Avatar out of you yet."

"So where are we going? Who's this master we're going to see?"

"Just wait for it," is all she says.

ZZZ

"Welcome to Earth Rumble VI." Toph graciously pays their admission. "Now go sit over there in the front row. I'll be right back." She walks off into the crowd.

"Why isn't she back yet?" Aang wonders several minutes later as the stadium gradually fills with spectators. Their section of the stands remains largely empty, though.

Zuko has an inkling as to what Toph might be doing that's keeping her from returning, but it's almost too outlandish to consider. She's already proven herself to be a more skilled earthbender than her parents will ever know, but this… is improbable. Just then, the earthbending host arrives, leaping into the ring and knocking an enormous pile of rubble in all directions, which narrowly misses braining them. So that's why no one's sitting here. He introduces himself as Xin Fu, and the crowd applauds wildly as he presents the first match of round one. "Fire Nation Man versus the Hammer!"

"Cheer for your countryman, Zuko!"

"He is _not_ from the Fire Nation," Zuko says disdainfully as Fire Nation Man gives a truly awful rendition of something that sounds nothing like the national anthem. He sighs. This blather almost makes him miss the solemnity of Agni Kai… but on second thought, not really.

The Hammer, a man with a styled beard that curls around his upper lip, punches the ground hard and cuts him short with a well-placed rock to the chest. "I wonder which of these is the earthbending master Toph wants us to meet?"

Fire Nation Man's favored cyclone-like sandstorm attacks don't score much in the way of offense against the Hammer, who takes him out within a few minutes. The next two matches are similarly landslide victories for the Big Bad Hippo, a heavyset man with a fondness for crunching rocks as a snack, and the Boulder, who has a penchant for grandiloquence.

"And now, for the final match of round one…" Xin Fu announces.

 _This is it. If she's going to be in the tournament, this has to be her._

"Ooh, let me guess! The Rockalanche! Or maybe Stony Stonewall!" Aang throws out names at random.

"Please welcome the Gopher and the Blind Bandit!"

"Toph?" Aang seems to have just realized what she's getting up to. Zuko feels a stir of pride, that he saw it coming first. It's petty, but he'll take what he can get. Toph stands proud and well, not _tall,_ but as tall as she can be, all four feet and some inches of her.

The Gopher, a squat man wearing thick goggles, doesn't seem to have any conflicts about fighting a little blind girl, and as soon as the gong sounds, he burrows underground in a cloud of dust. A stab of worry hits Zuko: how is Toph going to block his attack if she can't see or even hear him under the arena? She's slipped into defensive mode, her stance quite different from all the other contestants they've seen so far. Instead of standing brazenly, head high, fists clenched, an overwhelmingly macho display, she slouches slightly, leaning into an invisible embrace, with her hands held out in front, palms facing towards her, as if reading unseen words. Beside him, Aang bites his nails, looking equally worried for Toph.

They needn't have worried, however. After several tense seconds, she suddenly twists one hand around, fingers splayed daintily apart as if playing the zither instead of earthbending. She flicks her wrist with a delicate twitch and in contrast, a solid cone of earth shoots up from the ground in front of her… with the Gopher trapped in the middle.

"She got him!" Aang gasps. "I can't believe it! But how?"

"It's like she's seeing something no one else can," Zuko agrees. With a carefully measured forward lunge and an open push of one palm, Toph flings the Gopher, cone and all, out of the arena, signifying her victory in the shortest of all the first round matches.

ZZZ

"She was talking about herself," Zuko exclaims, almost giddily. The first of the semifinal matches ends with the Boulder soundly defeating the Hippo. "When she said she was going to find me an earthbending master!" It's really happening.

"Do you think… she can actually win?" Aang asks hesitantly while the Blind Bandit faces off with the Hammer, as if afraid of the answer.

"Is that even a question?" Zuko shoots back, watching as Toph swiftly sidesteps a sharp earth blade in the nick of time. "I've never seen a more talented bender in any element."

He doesn't mention Azula. Their strengths are so different—Azula's was raw power, tempered but overwhelmingly vital, just on the wrong side of too hot, but Toph doesn't waste energy with huge displays of strength. She blocks each of the Hammer's attacks with stoic aplomb until he tires himself out with frantic, endless volleys. Then, it's a simple matter of a sharp twist of her chin, and Toph breaks his footing, sending him somersaulting over the edge of the ring.

"Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence, Zuko. I feel very appreciated as your airbending teacher."

Zuko spares Aang a bemused glance before returning his eyes to the final (!) round between Toph and the Boulder. "I'm not saying you're bad at airbending, Aang. It's just that I haven't seen you do anything nearly as impressive as Toph."

"Outrageous!" Aang sputters. "I distinctly remember someone begging me to teach them gliding just the other day and sulking when I refused! Now who could that have been?"

In the arena, Toph smiles, an exaggeratedly toothy affair, as if she can hear their quarreling from down there. The Boulder struggles on a slab of rock lifted high in the air, and for a moment, there's a chance he might regain his footing—

And it's gone, along with his pride, as the Blind Bandit casts him out of the arena with little more effort than a cat batting at trapped mice.

ZZZ

"How did you manage all that? None of those guys stood a chance against you!" Zuko exclaims, when they meet up with Toph again outside the stadium. The championship belt is cinched around her waist.

"I don't see like you normal people do," she says as she starts to lead the way back towards town. "I see with my feet. I feel the vibrations in the earth from every movement, and I know where things are based on them. In that sense, I'm always earthbending, just so I can see around me."

"That's amazing." They're almost back to the estate. "Did Master Yu teach you that?"

"Of course not. That idiot doesn't know a thing about seeing with his feet. He doesn't stop to wait and listen, just like most earthbenders. Most people don't, in fact," and her words are laced with bitterness and long years of being suppressed by her parents. She stops and tenses suddenly.

"What is it?" Zuko asks.

"They've found us out," she says dully. "My mom and dad are waiting up ahead with the guards, and they're _not_ happy."

Zuko looks in the direction she's pointing in, and sure enough, he can faintly make out Lao and Poppy, surrounded by the uniformed guards of the estate.

"I could call Appa, and we could escape right now?" he suggests.

"Who's Appa?"

Aang shakes his head. "No, we owe it to Toph's parents to at least explain what's going on."

They draw closer to the walls of the estate, and Toph's parents rush towards them, stopping a few paces away as if afraid to approach, as if walking up to a caged beast.

"Where have you three been?!" Lao exclaims.

"We can explain," Zuko says, though somehow that's never convinced anyone. "We were at the Earth Rumble."

He gets no farther. "The Earth Rumble? What do you mean by stealing my daughter away to a place of such unsavory reputations?"

"Actually, it was my idea," Toph says. Not my 'fault', Zuko notices. "I invited them to go with me."

"By the way, she won the championship," Aang says proudly, as if he'd won the championship himself.

"What are you talking about?" Poppy murmurs in disbelief. "Toph, you can't possibly have participated, you're too—"

"Not only did she participate, she defeated everyone at the Earth Rumble tonight, grown men three times her size, while hardly lifting a finger. You have no idea what she's capable of."

"Nonsense!" Lao shouts. This is the most incensed they've ever seen him. "I know now what _you_ are capable of: kidnapping a fragile, blind girl and putting her in dangerous situations. This is unforgivable! Guards, seize them!"

Oh dear. Immediately, barrels of rock leap up from the earth at the response of the guards and tightly encircle Zuko and Aang.

"Please, hear me out," Zuko implores through the barrel tightening around his chest. "Your daughter is an amazing earthbender, and I would like nothing better than for her to be my earthbending teacher. The world needs her genius."

 _And she doesn't need you,_ is what that sounds like, he hears in afterthought.

"You can find other teachers! Toph is my only daughter. I will do anything to protect her from the likes of you," Lao spits out. He addresses the guards. "Arrest them, and see to it that they do not come near this place again."

"No."

Toph speaks up, her stance strong and steady as she releases Zuko and Aang from their bonds. "I'm going with them, Father. You won't keep me from this. This is my chance to actually do something worthwhile in life, instead of being the helpless, weak girl you think I am."

"Toph! You… you can't!" Lao seems at a loss for words. Clearly he's not used to his daughter's rebellious side.

"I _can_ do this. Try and hold me back," she challenges. "Let's go. I don't have the patience for this anymore," she says to Aang and Zuko.

"Toph, are you sure this is how you want to leave your parents?" Aang says uneasily as she starts to walk away.

"I thought this is what you two wanted!" she snaps. "Don't tell me you're having second thoughts!"

"We're not," Zuko says. He is not letting this chance slip through his fingers.

He should have known it wouldn't be quite that easy. They've reached the town limits when they hear the horde—there's no other word to describe the racket—coming.

"Oh for crying out loud, doesn't he know when to stop?" Toph complains as they turn to meet their pursuers.

At the very least, Zuko thinks drily, Toph's father no longer seems to harbor any delusions about his daughter being weak and incapable. He's sent at least a dozen reinforcements after them, though Zuko supposes they're meant to incapacitate him and Aang, not Toph herself.

He dives left to avoid a boulder, and it strikes him that this is really the first fair fight he's ever been in. Lu Ten, Uncle, his father, any of them could have crushed him easily (and did, in his father's case). But these earthbenders… quite a different story. He finds out quickly that airbending is not much use against rocks intent on smashing him to jelly, not at the level he's mastered, anyways. Aang whirls like a top, the vortex of a small tornado about his person that casts back anyone who even tries to approach him. Toph lifts huge slabs of rock with ease, toying with the guards more than anyone else.

 _Play to your strengths,_ someone once told him. _Remember who you are._

He does. For the first time in weeks, fire flares in his stomach, unstemmed, unfiltered, and the field around him leaps into flame and _burns._

* * *

 **AANG**

Thankfully, their pursuers don't prove too hard to dispatch. They fly for about three hours before stopping until daybreak, hopefully putting enough distance between them and Toph's vengeful father.

"Well, I'm wiped out from all that fighting and escaping today," Toph announces. "Good night!" She raises a triangle of earth above her head and promptly flops down to sleep.

They stare at the pyramid now enclosing her. "She's got the right idea," Zuko says. "Although I think we should set a watch, just in case. Thanks for volunteering, Toph."

The earth under his left foot jolts upwards, throwing him off balance. "Gah!"

"I can hear you, even if I can't see you, dolt," Toph says from inside her tent. "Anyways, we don't need a night watch. I'll feel anyone coming from miles away through the earth. Go to sleep."

Aang sighs. "I'll take first watch," he volunteers.

Zuko looks at him in surprise. "You sure? I could…"

"No, it's fine. You go to sleep. I'll wake you up in a few hours."

He sits propped up against Appa's side, while Zuko sleeps on the leg farthest from him. The late summer nights are still warm and mild. He lets out a breath that he feels like he's been holding all day. It's hard to believe that just hours prior, they'd been bickering over prawns. Prawns!

It's not that Aang doesn't recognize Zuko's need for an earthbending teacher, or how Toph is more than qualified for the job. But her parents…

 _Kept her locked away from the world and would never have let her reach her full potential, even if they'd known what it could be. So there you have it._

They're still her parents, though, and those with parents should cherish them. Aang's own mother all but pushed him out the door with no regard for her own loneliness. And Zuko's…

 _"She just left one day, after my grandfather died…"_

And then his father banished him. Aang wonders what kind of a man could possess such ruthlessness and power. Probably a firebender? He's not clear on the politics of the Fire Nation, but to his knowledge, the Fire Lord himself is always a bender, like most nobility. That probably says something about their values.

Zuko seems to have the same notions, he thinks disagreeably. The ambush today with the Gaoling forces was a minor setback in their attempt to abscond with Toph, but the other two had brought all they had to the fight. Aang can still see it so clearly; honestly, he probably paid more attention to Zuko than to their attackers.

He was an inferno in a man, throwing fire blasts like fireflies lighting on grass in the summer. Aang sees now how he's been holding back, tempering his bending, using it for petty tasks like lighting the campfire, but never in situations where anything of importance was at stake.

Dad was a firebender too, he reminds himself. The world can't be in harmony without one of the four elements, regardless of its potential for destruction and its people's thirst for power.

AAA

He startles awake to the silver lining of just-before-dawn. Zuko stands over him, looking amused. "You were supposed to wake me."

… _right._ "Well, you're up anyways. Well done, you," he says, the sour mood of interrupted sleep heavy in his voice.

"Did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bison?" Zuko sits down next to him, fluffing up Appa's fur to get more comfortable.

A disgruntled "mmm" is the only response. "Oh, just go back to sleep," Zuko says. "We'll leave when you're actually human enough for civil conversation. Toph's not up either."

 _Sounds like a plan._ Aang closes his eyes again.

"I should thank you, though." Clearly, Zuko does not understand the concept of going back to sleep and how it involves 'not talking'.

"Why, for not waking you up?"

"No, for outing me as the Avatar." Zuko smiles intently at Aang's bemused expression. "I mean, your delivery could use some work, but it gave us the chance we needed. I don't think I'd have had the courage otherwise, and then maybe Toph wouldn't have dragged us to the Earth Rumble. She wouldn't be here with us now to teach me earthbending. So thanks, for that. You gave me the confidence to achieve our goal."

 _I probably could have held back a bit,_ Aang thinks darkly. He remembers the shocked gasps of the earthbenders sent to capture them last night as the very ground beneath their bare feet began to smolder, as the air grew thick with smoke from the conflagration surrounding Zuko.

 _So that's what firebending really looks like. That's how my father died._

"You're welcome."

* * *

 **A/N:** Notes: archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/17537761


	5. Earth Beneath Me

**ZUKO**

"First lesson of earthbending: move a rock." Toph strikes the ground with one heel, and a large column of earth springs up in front of Zuko.

"I don't know, Toph, this seems a little ambitious," Aang says, leaping onto the rock with a light flurry of air. "Shouldn't you start with moving a pebble?"

She moves to dislodge him, rather like swatting a pesky fly, but he's already gone, taking shelter in one of the few trees in the barren scrubland where they've opted to start Zuko's earthbending training. "The principle behind bending a mountain and a pebble is the same. To bend earth, you have to be unbendable. Horse stance, Zuko! Legs wider, hips lower!" she snaps.

"Yes, right." He hurries to comply. Suddenly, earthbending seems more daunting that it did in theory. Fire and air move easily at his will, but this rock looks pretty unyielding.

"Now push the rock as far as you can. If it helps, imagine catapulting it at Aang's head, though you're not likely to do that on your first try."

Zuko inhales and does _not_ imagine pulverizing Aang's head, thank you very much. He pushes both palms outward and steps forward deliberately as Toph demonstrated. The rock inches forward, perhaps an eighth of its width, and comes to a decisive stop again.

"Hey, at least it moved," Aang chirps as Zuko looks at the ground in embarrassment.

Toph crosses her arms and sighs. "It's too bad Twinkletoes got to you before I did."

"Who?"

"She means you," Zuko clarifies.

"I don't answer to Twinkletoes, it's not manly! What kind of nickname is that, anyways?"

"A very apt one. You barely touch the ground when you walk; it's like you're constantly about to fly away. Zuko, you're going to have to unlearn whatever he's taught you so far. You can't earthbend with an airbender's attitude."

"Excuse me, I worked hard with Zuko on his airbending; you can't just undo it all!"

"Okay then, forget it." Toph throws up her hands dramatically. "Zuko won't learn. He'll be the first Avatar ever who can't earthbend. What a story for the grandkids."

Zuko foresees that the two of them can go all morning and cuts it off before they get any further. "Aang, it's all right. I'm not going to forget my airbending. I just have to focus on earthbending right now."

"Good, now can you go be somewhere else while I'm teaching Zuko? In fact, be helpful and go buy us food," Toph orders.

"But the nearest village isn't for miles!" Aang complains.

"Well, that's something. Besides, you have all day."

Toph turns away from him in a clear dismissal. Zuko sighs under his breath. It's going to be a long... however long it takes for him to master earthbending.

ZZZ

"You're picking up the basics of moving and shaping rocks pretty well," Toph says as he follows her to the edge of the tallest cliff around. "I think it's time we got a little more creative." They look over the edge (well, Zuko does), the vertical cliff face largely smooth and devoid of handholds. "Now, we're going to up the stakes a bit. You'll jump off the edge and as you fall, earthbend your way down to the canyon floor. You can use any means available: a slide, rock ledges, rock climbing, a rock ladder, as long as you use earthbending."

"Er, I lost you at the part where I jump off the cliff." His delivery is deadpan, but somehow, he's not really feeling it.

"Oh, sorry, are you scared you might fall to your death?"

"Yes…? I mean, jumping off cliffs might be your bread and butter since you've been earthbending for half your life. I've only been doing it for two weeks, and I'm not exactly confident of bending earth that I'm not even touching."

Toph heaves a dramatic groan of disgust and gives in. "Oh fine, if you're that scared, we can walk back down the way we came and start by climbing the cliff with earthbending instead."

"That's a relief to—!" he starts to say before Toph pushes him right over the edge, contrary to her concession.

He's falling, the cliff side a dusty blur before him, the wind stinging his eyes, and he's surely going to die splattered at the bottom of the canyon, the only Avatar ever to be cold-bloodedly murdered by his earthbending teacher. Zuko lashes out blindly in midair and manages to strike the wall with one foot—that's all it takes to catch himself on a ledge pulled out of the cliff in a narrow, hit-or-miss split second. He hauls himself up top and squints up at Toph, some fifty feet above. "Are you trying to kill me?!"

"Not so much trying; more like nearly succeeding!" she calls back. "Anyways, trial by fire, isn't that what they call it? You'll be fine. Keep going!"

Of course, she can't know that his last trial by fire didn't turn out fine at all. He turns back to the empty drop of thin air beyond the tips of his toes and focuses his energy. Earth is enduring and unshakeable. It's hard to feel the same when approaching terminal velocity, but not impossible.

He consults the barren canyon before him, unable to support most plants, choked off from water and everything necessary to sustain life. There's a kind of desiccated beauty to it, all the same—the stark lines of the cliff against the sky, unsoftened by grass and gentle curves, the solid, unyielding shades of the tawny-rust rock. He scans the wall below him, straining his eyes to find something to hold on to on his way down.

"Paint a picture; it'll last longer!" Toph shouts impatiently. "Now if you're quite done admiring the scenery…"

It occurs to him that 1) this isn't the first time he's fervently tried to memorize a landscape under time constraints, and 2) Master Piandao's exercise would be completely lost on Toph for obvious reasons. But that doesn't mean they can't be applied here.

 _Make your surroundings fight for you._

He tunes back in to Toph, who is in the middle of an extended rant on the laziness of Avatars. He's not sure which Avatar she's using for comparison; he hears but doesn't listen. Intently, he steps off the ledge.

* * *

 **AANG**

"There you are! I've got some bad news from town today; you're not going to like it," Aang calls, walking towards Toph's figure perched at the edge of the cliff.

Toph doesn't react, standing stock-still, hands on hips, giving every appearance of looking over the edge, though she probably is doing just that, but with her feet. "Where's Zuko?" he asks as he draws level with the earthbender. She points downwards toward the canyon as a response.

"Oh dear guru," he breathes, glider staff already in his hand and ready to dive over the edge. She's cast Zuko into the void, probably as punishment for failing to master a new form fast enough. _Where was I?_

She smacks the staff out of his hand and points more emphatically. "Don't be dramatic, Twinkletoes. See for yourself; he's fine. You might even say he's passed with _flying_ colors."

Aang dares himself to look over the edge, and instead of Zuko's crumpled remains at the bottom of the cliff, he sees the Avatar bouncing back and forth between the two sheer rock faces that make up the canyon walls. He's actually jettisoning himself into the cliff face using brief fire blasts from his feet, swinging them in at the last moment before contact, and then using earthbending to push off again towards the opposite wall. He never alights on either wall for more than a few heartbeats at a time, but it's enough for Toph to track his progress.

"You sound displeased."

"Technically, he's following instructions," Toph says in a dry voice that indicates she thinks otherwise. "I only said he had to use earthbending to get to the bottom of the cliff; I didn't say he couldn't use firebending or the other cliff side."

"Genius," Aang says simply. "I suppose you were expecting him to scrabble down the cliff like a handicapped moose-lion and nearly break his neck?"

"That was the spirit of the lesson, yes." She sounds rather regretful.

"I am so glad I get him back after you're done with him. You earthbenders don't know how to treat an Avatar right," he declares.

"If he survives, he's all yours."

 _Heaven protect us from earthbenders,_ he intones silently.

AAA

"So what's the bad news you were telling me about?" Toph asks.

 _Ah, yes._ Aang digs out a piece of paper from his pocket, which Zuko takes and reads aloud for Toph's benefit: "Wanted: Toph Beifong. A thousand gold pieces for the capture of this fourteen-year-old girl. Although she is small, she is very dangerous. Any information on her will be rewarded." It's accompanied by a rather unflattering sketch of Toph's best enraged expression.

"I love it!" she exclaims. "An actual wanted poster of me!"

"It's not a good thing," Aang says in exasperation. "This means we have to be more careful. People are going to be on the lookout for your face, with a reward like that."

"I'd like to see them try and catch me."

"Let's avoid that," Zuko says. Between his fingers, the paper starts to crumble under a thin stream of flame.

"Hey! I want to keep that as a souvenir."

"Too late." He brushes the ash off his hands. "It's incriminating evidence; you can't risk having it found on you. If it makes you feel any better, neither Aang nor I have a piece of paper with our picture on it. You're quite the celebrity."

"It does make me feel a bit better," Toph admits.

* * *

 **AZULA**

"Why all this secrecy, Zhao?" Azula asks, trailing him down another flight of steps and following him through a set of heavy, metal doors. They enter a room as large as the Agni Kai hall, eerily lit by a few dim torches that reflect blurrily in the bronze walls. The floor is packed earth, tamped down into stone-like firmness. "We must be nearly a hundred feet below the palace now. Does the Fire Nation really have secrets dark enough to keep so far from the light of day?"

It absolutely does; they're not so far from the Dragon-Bone Catacombs, even now, but Zhao doesn't know about that.

"Your father started construction on this training ground years ago, when he anticipated the need for you to learn earthbending. The walls and foundations are made of metal. There is no safer place for you to start your training," Zhao explains.

"Safe from whom? Surely you wouldn't think I'm not a match for whatever doddering old master you've dredged up for me from the Earth Kingdom?" she ridicules.

"Whatever put such an idea into your head?" Zhao shakes his head in amusement. "Precautions are precautions."

Another set of doors at the opposite end of the hall opens, and Azula feels a twinge of curiosity flanked by apprehension. _This is really happening. I'm really going to learn earthbending._

 _But what if I still can't earthbend?_ _What if it just doesn't work out?_

And, _please, don't let my teacher be the earthbending version of Master Kunyo. That man was insufferably idiotic._

Two guards enter, with another two bringing up the rear. Azula looks for white hair, a hunched back, a face as petrified and lined as old stone, anything that might resemble an experienced earthbending master, but finds none. Instead, in their midst walks a boy no older than Azula herself. His eyes are on the ground, his back rigid, his hands twisted tensely together. The guards give him a little shove; he stumbles forward and approaches unsurely.

Azula raises puzzled eyes from the nondescript figure to Zhao's smug expression. "Who's this, Zhao? Don't tell me you've had to start importing bootblacks from the colonies?"

The boy stops a few paces from them, still looking down. Whoever manhandled him into the standard palace servants' garb neglected to take away the forest-green headband holding his long hair back. It stands out garishly against the burgundy and scarlet trim, just like he himself does, a common boy from the Earth Kingdom.

"Now don't be facetious, Azula. This is Haru. He's from the mining colony at Meikuang," Zhao says, as if this explains everything.

"He has a name? Commander, I never thought I'd be the one to tell you this, but you should never get attached to your servants." This is small talk, which isn't like Azula, but for once, she can't help avoiding the larger issue at hand, a sneaking suspicion that all is not as it seems.

Zhao breathes out a huff of irritation. "I selected him to be your earthbending teacher."

"But…" She looks again at the boy, as if those few elapsed seconds will have transformed him into something better resembling an earthbending teacher.

"You know I don't make mistakes, Princess. Your father expressed concerns, but rest assured, my choice was well-reasoned." Zhao paces away from them, dismissing the guards and leaving Azula and Haru—she mentally stumbles over the unfamiliar name—standing in charged silence. "Show us your earthbending, Haru," he commands, not bothering to look over his shoulder. "Don't disappoint the princess, now."

Haru lifts his gaze from its fixed position at his feet, and in the fly-by moment where their eyes touch, Azula notes that his are drab green, like the muck that turtle ducks dredge up from the bottom of the pond. Slimy, unassuming, once vibrant but now rotted and decaying, like the rest of his people. For some reason, this reassures her briefly. The Earth Kingdom will follow in the ways of the Air Nomads and the Water Tribes, crushed beyond hope. There is nothing difficult to master or intrinsically superior about earth. It's just one of three new elements that Azula must control, a means to an end, the end of the world as four nations.

His eyes shift towards Zhao's staunchly turned back, some ten paces away, and she almost misses it—the fleeting shine of green eyes bright with desperation, like striking spark rocks (she's _seen_ them at the Academy, never deigned to use them after she learned firebending). With the suddenness of an earthquake, Haru moves to strike; with a fluidity that she almost envies (almost), he lifts and catapults three spheres of earth toward the back of Zhao's head, his movements sure and true.

To Zhao's credit, he reacts immediately, dodging the first as he hears it coming and neatly dispatching the rest with fire blasts, as if he had been expecting this. The concussive force of his blasts rebounds on Haru, knocking him against Azula's side.

"Well _excuse_ me, you swine." She pushes him hastily away, racing to recover from her surprise.

"Consider yourself excused," he snaps back.

"Why, you—" Too incensed for words, she raises the flames in one hand before really thinking through the consequences of severely maiming her earthbending teacher on their first day of instruction.

"Now, now, Azula," Zhao cautions, as if she's some wayward child in need of remonstrance. "Haru, restrain yourself. Even if you had somehow managed to overpower both myself and Azula, you would have had nowhere to go, no way to escape."

"At least I would have had the satisfaction of wiping that smirk off your face." Haru's voice is rough but sprightly.

"And there is the reason I chose this one, Azula," Zhao explains, as if Haru is a particularly well-bred komodo rhino. "There are plenty of respectable earthbenders among the citizens of Yu Dao, our greatest colony; in the peaceful villages of the Southern Earth Kingdom; even in the vast Si Wong Desert. But the person that teaches you earthbending needs to have more than talent. That alone gets you halfway to the sun. The rest of the way requires determination, grit, and hope, which Haru possesses in heaps—not something that could be said of his fellow inmates in the mining colony."

Haru fumes at this dismissal of his countrymen, his eyes simmering like flames on the verge of being stoked into a verdant inferno.

"You need someone who will push the boundaries of your ability, Azula, just as I've done with your firebending training," Zhao says sagely. "I have tendered my choice; now, it is your choice as to whether you will learn."

The way he phrases it sounds almost threatening, but she's not unfamiliar with the attitude. Zhao is a man of insecurities, living in the shadow of his father's accomplishments. All these recent promotions and special tasks from Fire Lord Ozai have done wonders for his ego—but not enough. His confidence is a house on stilts, resting on a swelling river. She tells herself that she is not the same.

AAA

"So… you're the Avatar."

Zhao's left them to themselves with the promise to return and observe Azula's progress in one hour. Meaning, she has one hour to learn at least the most basic earthbending. Meaning, small talk is out of the question this time.

"Yes, I'm sure you were briefed before you got here, so I'm expecting there to be no surprises," she snaps. "Let's get on with what you came here to do."

"I was _brought_ here to teach you earthbending," Haru amends. "But I _came_ here looking to escape, or at least knock that pig-headed commander into the next century."

"Semantics, how sweet," she sneers. What is it with boys and declaring their false bravado to embarrass themselves in front of everyone? Zuko was the same. "For now, though, you're to focus on your functional purpose."

"Well then, let's see what you can do." Haru crosses his arms and looks expectantly at Azula.

"I…" Perhaps only her father has ever been able to shut her up so thoroughly and quickly. "Why don't you demonstrate first?"

"Afraid you'll fail on your first try?"

"Of course not." Internally, she scrambles to calm her nerves and remind herself that charbroiling her earthbending teacher will only delay her maturation as the Avatar. "I just don't want you to feel useless so early on."

"Touching."

AAA

It turns out that Haru is not the useless one in this equation.

"Watch me, again," Haru instructs, and she does automatically, not out of any hope that she'll somehow get it after observing him for the fiftieth time. "The trick is in your feet. You've got to stay rooted on the ground even as you pull it out from under you." True to his word, he stands firm, raising a clump of earth twice Azula's height, arms lifted in a graceful arc like a dancer. He casts it away from himself, punctuating the move with arms fully extended, the rock imploding dozens of feet away in a small cloud of dust.

"Try it now."

She copies his stance, places her feet just where his would be as she steps in the direction she intends to bend the earth. Her movements precisely mirror his, with only one component missing: the bending.

"Why isn't it working?" she spits out from between clenched teeth. "You're not teaching it right; I should've gotten it by now."

"I think I know what I'm about, given that out of the two of us, I'm the only one who can actually earthbend," he quips. "This is how my father taught me. There's no arguing with what your father teaches you, is there?"

That catches her off guard. Truth be told, Ozai has never actually taught her firebending. The lessons she's learned from him… to the fore of her mind stands one thing: weakness is intolerable. Zuko's dishonor, and now her own failure to earthbend. She tries again, overbalancing in an effort to push her arms out front as vigorously as possible, to no avail, and nearly falls face first. Even so, she doesn't miss Haru reach out a hand as if to steady her. She rights herself and steps away from him quickly.

"Your time is up, Princess Azula. I hope you've spent it wisely."

Azula freezes, if only for the slightest moment. She'd been so focused on Haru that Zhao's return had gone unnoticed. She curses herself for her carelessness; what kind of a princess lets anyone sneak up on her? If she weren't a mere sixteen years old, she'd say she was getting slow in her old age.

"Of course, Commander," she says clearly despite her uncertainty, stolid voice trained by the very one she's lying to now. Beside her, Haru scuffs his feet audibly and looks anywhere but at Zhao. They'll have to work on that—she can't be taking the fall thanks to someone else's tells.

"Don't be shy, then. Let's see what you've learned." Zhao stalks closer, stopping about two stone throws away, perhaps wary of Azula's newly developed and potentially precocious earthbending skills.

 _Ha. Ha,_ she thinks dully.

"Your father will be overjoyed to hear of your progress," he adds.

Anxiety flares up again like oil poured on a weak but growing fire, reaching rampant levels quickly. She _has_ to earthbend. Failure is not an option. Her father has every confidence in her. She can't fall apart now.

"Princess? Are you alright?" Haru asks.

Oh Agni, she's becoming as dense and unsubtle as an Earth Kingdom child. If even Haru can note her crumbling interior, Zhao must see it as clearly as shadow puppets on a bright candlelit screen, her confidence and skill as false as the blurry, phantom silhouettes in staged drama.

"Yes, just stand back; you've done your part," she dismisses roughly. She hopes Zhao didn't catch the tail end of her voice cracking from stress.

She assumes an earthbending stance—so low to the ground, how do earthbenders have any source of mobility whatsoever?—and thinks inspiring thoughts, empowering ones. Firebending for the first time. Tricking Mai and Zuko into falling into the pond. Her demonstration for Grandfather Azulon. She smiles.

The first time she walked through the palace halls after Zuko's banishment, expecting to see him. The way her father looked at her after announcing the Avatar, appraisingly, like she wasn't his daughter, but just a very useful tool.

 _If that's all I am, then I've got to be a good one. Not just good, but the best._

She raises a fist in preparation to pack earth she knows will not leap to her touch.

 _I can't let him treat me like Zuko._

She punches through the air, like Haru showed her, pushing all the way through, and for a split second, she _knows—_

 _Who am I trying to deceive?_

Zhao claps, sardonically because that's his way, that of the insincere, of the skeptical. But there's a gaping hole in front of Azula, and a block of earth on the ground some twelve feet away, that exactly fits the size and shape of the hole.

Did she really just…?

She turns to see Haru looking away, but again, _tells._

She ignores Zhao congratulating her and promising to carry glowing reports to the Fire Lord (along with complimentary testimonials of his own involvement, no doubt). She registers Haru following the guards out to wherever they stash him when he's not giving lessons, and her own feet carrying her through the steps and planes of the palace until she reaches her rooms. Whereas her head had been filled earlier with smoke and shadows of doubt and fear, she now fixates on one thing alone:

 _Why?_

AAA

"Why did you do it?"

Haru steps away from the door in confusion and alarm as she pushes past him.

"What?"

"Don't play the innocent. Why did you fake earthbending for me in front of Zhao?"

"Would you rather I hadn't intervened and let you look like a fool?" Haru counters impatiently.

She ignores this very obvious bid for clemency and presses on. _She doesn't like not knowing._ "Answer the question."

"I just did! I faked your earthbending so you wouldn't look like a fool, to satisfy that bratty old man!"

"Did you really just call him a…" she trails off somewhat hysterically.

"Do you disagree?"

There is a low stool in the middle of the room; Azula walks past him to sit. She wishes its padded cushion were a little higher, that she might retain some position of superiority.

True power is something you're born with, she reminds herself. A throne is only an accessory to the divine right to rule

"Be careful with your tone," she advises. "You know, I had my first firebending teacher banished to the colonies."

Haru snorts, a bitter sound and not the reaction she was expecting. "I'm just appreciating the irony of the situation. There's nothing I would like better than to be banished back to my home. I'd rather be anywhere but here."

"Then why did you cover for me in front of Zhao? If you'd just pretended you weren't a competent teacher, then he would have had to ship you back to whatever ragtag village you call home and find me a replacement."

"You really think that's how it would go?" He paces towards her agitatedly, eyes regarding her with all the emotion of cold, hewn jade. "If I fail to teach you earthbending, I die. Zhao was pretty clear about that on the way here. So I hope to God you _are_ the Avatar, and that all of today was just some kind of mental block for you."

He towers over her, and suddenly she wishes… she wishes that she hadn't just heard him deliver the truth in all its lackluster reality, that he had more than just his own interests in mind, acting as he did today. She wishes someone cared about something other than her being the Avatar, about a her that isn't her—

 _No._ She shakes her head, knowing she must look off her rocker to Haru, but that doesn't matter.

"Listen, let's call a truce. We have a common goal: for you to learn earthbending. Barring that, maintain the impression that you can earthbend for as long as possible to keep your father off our backs. He doesn't sound like a very nice guy."

"I've no idea what makes you think that."

"Commander Zhao seems fond of him; that's an automatic demerit."

Azula stifles a giggle—really, what's gotten into her? She attributes it to the anxiety still lurking in her gut, the same thing that makes her ask what's truly worrying her:

"What if I can't learn earthbending? What if I'm not the Avatar?"

The silence takes on a mournful quality, not unlike the air around her after Zuko left. It's almost definitive, even though she doesn't yet know for sure.

"I don't know," Haru says, and she sees that all that beforehand, all the tough talk and backtalk was just that—talk. She sees it in the way his head bows and his shoulders slump, as if trying to get closer to the earth from which he draws his strength. She hears it in the longing in his voice at the mention of her father, the Fire Lord.

"Fine," she says with a brusqueness she doesn't feel. "Truce."

It feels so strange to be making such a declaration, as if they're children squabbling in the schoolyard.

Are they not?

* * *

 **ZUKO**

"I'm so hungry," Toph announces one evening as they stop by a town on the way north. "And I'm sick of berries and fish. Let's buy some real food here."

"Ah, one problem, Toph: real food requires real money, and we don't have any left," Aang says.

"Remind me why I let you hold my Earth Rumble winnings?"

"Oh no, no, you do not get to use that voice with me," Aang retorts, holding up one hand defensively. "You as good as forced me to take all your money when you made me take charge of feeding the two of you while you chucked rocks at each other these past few weeks."

"I _trusted_ you to spend it responsibly—"

"Hold up, you two," Zuko interjects, only partly because he wants to head off any more arguments. The main reason is that he's just seen their next meal ticket hanging in a shop.

"You want this rusty old horn?" the flower shop keeper asks bemusedly, lowering the Tsungi horn from where it hangs from the rafters of the shop. "I've been using it as a trellis for whispering starbloom." Indeed, the tarnished brass of the Tsungi horn is covered in trailing vines sporting tiny white flowers, each with six delicate, gossamer petals.

"Have they whispered anything to you?" Toph asks, only a little sarcastically.

"Er…"

"No? Then we'll take it off your hands. Aang here will help you relocate the flowers and anything else you need done around the shop as compensation," Toph volunteers. "Please and thank you."

Aang looks bewildered as they abandon him in the flower shop. "It could have been worse," Toph reassures him. "Zuko could have found the horn in a butcher's shop, for whatever reason."

"Oh, you're a riot."

* * *

 **AANG**

The song of the Tsungi horn drifts mournfully over the crowded street. Aang listens as he shovels fresh fertilizer and soil into some large flower pots. Toph is off who knows where, claiming to be playing her part in somehow rustling up money as well. He's not sure his conscience wants him to know.

The music isn't familiar to Aang, but the sentiment is. He watches Zuko sway and bow slightly with the current of the music, like grass buffeted by the breeze. The tune is one of longing—for what? Home, family, familiarity? Is that what Zuko wants and needs? Or is he glad to have left his past behind?

 _"Home is where the heart is," his mother says in one of her frustrating non sequiturs, when Aang asks her if they can go home after a rare long day of errands in the village. He's five, he doesn't understand, then, that her heart lies buried at the Southern Air Temple._

Zuko's shoulders rise and fall gently, rhythmically with each breath, lungs expanding, pulling air in, and giving his heart the strength to keep beating. He looks over, across the street, as if he knows Aang is thinking about him. His lips quirk minutely, perhaps in amusement at Aang's unsavory employment. Zuko's smile never fails to captivate him. It seems too wide to be contained in his face and spreads beyond himself, infecting Aang as well.

He takes a long breath in preparation for the next phrase, and between that breath and the first note fall, he closes his eyes, letting Aang look his fill once more.

 _I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only,_ he muses. _I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary. I would like to be your home, whether you realize it or not._

Aang's heart beats quietly in his chest like it always has, but as he listens to Zuko pour his soul into the music, it starts to beat a little more insistently. Like it's got somewhere to be, someone to meet. Someone to make it whole.

Dear guru, he is gone, absolutely _gone._

* * *

 **ZUKO**

After they count their proceeds for the day, Toph drags Zuko off to find the butcher's shop ("fish is not real meat!"), leaving Aang to meet Appa back at their camp site. They stroll leisurely through the market, and Zuko glances at the message board in the center of the village square. Hopefully there won't be any more postings about Toph.

There aren't. There is, however, an advert for a historical play called _The Children of Fire._ He stops to read the summary and feels himself go numb.

 _A gripping history of the Fire Nation's March of Civilization, including the colonization of the Earth Kingdom, the defeat of the Air Nomads and the Water Tribes, and the Siege of Ba Sing Se. Witness in awesome detail the magnificent conquests of Fire Lords Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai, and the disgrace of General Iroh and the late Prince Zuko, son of Ozai. The critically acclaimed playwright Cao Yu presents this work in honor of the meteoric rise of the Fire Nation and the return of the Avatar, Crown Princess Azula, in this year of Sozin's Comet._

He thought he'd left this life behind, but it's found him regardless. He tears the paper off the message board and scans it again. The picture is of his father, with his predecessors in the background, and in a corner, Zuko's own scarred face.

"What is it?" Toph asks. "It sounds like a piece of paper, but obviously you seem to be more worried about what's on the paper, judging by your pulse."

 _I can't tell her,_ he realizes. _I can't tell Aang either. It would be the end of us._

"Don't tell me it's another of my wanted posters. I thought we'd seen the last of those," Toph continues.

He slows his breathing as subtly as he can—this requires finesse. "I won't tell you, then," he says nonchalantly, crumpling the fake wanted poster up and stuffing it into his pocket. "Don't worry, if they don't notice when you're walking right past your own picture, they'll never find you."

"I suppose not," she agrees.

As they return to camp, he recalls the last few lines of the advert—the playwright seems to be under the impression that Azula is the Avatar. How can that be, though? She's a firebending master, but no matter what, she can't be able to bend the other elements. The Fire Sages must know that Zuko, not Azula, is the Avatar. Have they told the Fire Lord? Is he sending search parties even now to forcibly bring Zuko back to the Fire Nation? He can't even explain to Toph and Aang the danger that they're in, by traveling with him. It's one thing for him to be the Avatar of the Fire Nation, but another thing entirely to be the Fire Lord's son. It wouldn't go down well, and that's an understatement.

Later, he secretly puts the poster away in his bag, strangely reluctant to burn it. It's as if it's the only thing tying him to his old life, the only evidence that he once was Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation. He's not sure what it says about him, that he doesn't want to forget completely.

* * *

 **A/N:** Writing notes for this chapter, including ramblings on the chronology and how did Haru of all people get into this story: archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/18329797

Also if you ever want to talk to me in more depth about this story or Avatar or anything in general, my Tumblr's the place to hit up! the-cloud-whisperer


	6. Inferno

**ZUKO**

They continue to fly north, not out of any actual consensus, but merely an unspoken need to put as much distance as possible between them and anyone who might want to snag Toph's bounty. _Or mine, if the Fire Nation finds out I'm still alive,_ Zuko worries. But that's his burden alone.

One morning, they approach a village on the south side of a vast mountain range. The countryside surrounding it is desolate and broken, the forest now reduced to an empty stand of trees knocked askew, branches sticking out like waiting gallows. The ground is cracked and dry, and a few abandoned houses litter the landscape.

"What happened here?" Aang says, looking around in horror. "It's like there was a great battle.

The village seems barely awake even though it's already mid-morning. The streets are lined with neat little houses, their green roof tiles shining in the gentle sun. Hardly anyone seems to be living in them, though. A few villagers avoid their eyes and dart away across the street. They have a harried look and manner, as if constantly looking over their shoulders for trouble, for a plague that can't be shaken.

They stop to pick up some fruit at one of the few shops open for business. "So, why does everyone here seem so… I don't know, under the weather?" Aang asks the proprietor, a woman with graying hair and drab green eyes. She fixes him with an exhausted gaze as she bags apples and lychee-nuts for them.

"You would feel it, too, if your village had been ransacked over the years." Her hands shake slightly. "Robbed of its very lifeblood, its people."

"By the Fire Nation?"

"If only it were just them. A spirit has started terrorizing our village, a monstrous demon that descends from the mountainside, massive and insatiable. One month ago, it started stealing people away in the dead of night. It comes without warning and leaves just as quickly. We never see those people again."

"Why would a spirit do something like that? That sounds more like something the soldiers would do."

"The Fire Nation army doesn't care what the spirit does as long as it doesn't interfere with their ability to tax and oppress us."

"So why have _they_ been taking people?" Toph asks.

She closes her eyes. "I can't tell you… it's too painful."

There's a peeling map tacked to the wall behind the counter, perhaps to guide travelers passing through when this village had seen better days. Zuko notes their location and realizes what this place is. Fate would not have him avoid it after all, it seems.

"It's for the coal mine, isn't it?" he says. "Cheap and efficient slave labor."

"How did you know?"

He avoids the question. "The Fire Nation drilled a network of mines throughout the mountain, and they need earthbenders to help them extract the coal, to fuel their war ships."

The woman nods. "Five years ago, they arrived in our village. Our earthbenders fought against the invaders, but they were outnumbered and taken prisoner, including my husband. They've never returned. They took my son recently. I told him to hide his abilities so they wouldn't take him away, but he must have been practicing one day and was caught. He was no older than you children. Now I've lost both Haru and my husband. Many of those who remain here have lost loved ones as well. It's impossible to cling to any hope at all."

ZZZ

Kani lets them sleep in the barn for the evening. "You should leave at dawn. If the Fire Nation doesn't catch you, the spirit will."

"I wish we could help these people somehow." Zuko stares at the ceiling, the gaps between thatches opening to dark skies.

"We can," Aang says passionately. "We just have to think of a way."

"I say we join forces and run this spirit out of town," Toph proposes, throwing herself back on a pile of hay. "We'll bury it so deep beneath the mountain, it can never escape."

"But how can we restrain it with just the two of us? It's a huge spirit, probably as old as the mountains."

"You're the Avatar. If anyone can do it, you can."

"That's beside the point," Aang interjects. "We can't disrespect it like that."

"Then what do _you_ think we should do?"

"Zuko, you could try talking to my father. He probably knew lots of spirits in his time."

"What?" Toph asks, puzzled. Zuko vaguely remembers that they never actually briefed her on Aang's background beyond being one of only two airbenders to survive the Fire Nation's wrath.

"Oh sure, I'll just take a stroll on over to the spirit world and knock on Avatar Tenzin's front door, shall I? I don't actually know _how_ to contact him," Zuko says in frustration. "It's not as easy as closing my eyes and imagining that I'm talking to him."

"But it _could_ be. I've spent a lot of time meditating over the years. I've never contacted any of the past Avatars, but we could try together. Maybe it would work with you here."

Zuko frowns. "I don't know… how exactly do I go about speaking to my past lives?"

Aang scoots closer so that he's sitting a shoulder's width apart from Zuko, facing the other. "Trust me. Just follow my lead." He sits cross-legged and tall, pressing folded hands against each other, wrists deliberately straight and smooth. He looks over expectantly, so Zuko maneuvers himself into the same position. It feels a little unnatural, like he's trying too hard to align every edge in his body and somehow conduct himself to a higher plane.

"Well, I'm staying right here," Toph announces. "See you both when you get back from wherever you're going."

"Shh, Toph. We can't exactly get there in the first place if you keep talking."

" _Rude!"_

Zuko quashes a smile as he closes his eyes, the delicately lined edge of Aang's eyelids being the last thing he sees.

* * *

 **AANG**

He can hear Toph breathing quietly, but all the same, he shouldn't be able to hear that, or the low mournful hoot of a cat-owl outside, or any of the many sounds of the autumn night. Aang sighs internally: this isn't working. He opens his eyes and checks on Zuko, who seems to be totally immersed in his meditation. Props to him for trying, but Aang knows a lost cause when he sees one.

"Zuko, it's okay, we can try again later," he says, trying to keep the anxious current out of his voice. "Zuko?"

The Avatar doesn't respond, but remains exactly as he's seated, back straight, head tall, knuckles slotted together as Aang had shown him.

"Are you asleep, Zuko?" he tries again.

"Want me to check?" Toph offers, standing behind him. Without waiting for an answer, she pokes one finger into the back of Zuko's head, pushes, and down he goes.

"Toph!" Aang lurches forward and manages to catch Zuko by the shoulders before he collapses into the dirt. "You could've interfered with his entering the spirit world!"

"I don't know about that, he seems to be pretty much there already. Unlike _you,_ Twinkletoes."

Aang maneuvers Zuko to prop him up against the wall of the barn, trying not to let his hands linger. The Avatar remains still and pliant throughout, confirming Toph's observation: Zuko has managed to enter the spirit world, while Aang has not, in spite of years of training with his mother in meditation.

"Yeah, I noticed," he says, just short of snapping. "One dead giveaway was the fact that I can see you, still here too."

Toph snorts. "Am I doing this right?" she points at her eyes, which in the dim light appear to be rolling in disdain. "I don't care for all that spiritual mumbo jumbo. The real world's good enough for me."

Zuko's head rolls forward unconsciously, so Aang sits down next to him and rests it on his shoulder. No sense in him getting a neck cramp as a reward for making it into the spirit world unaided.

"It's not fair. I've been working on my meditation for years. My spirit doesn't seem to want to go," he muses.

"Maybe you're just not as spiritual as you think you are."

Aang absently tilts his head to rest on Zuko's. If Toph notices, she doesn't say. "I know I'm not. I used to think I'd somehow be able to meet my father this way, but it's never happened. I'll never really get to know him."

"Eh, fathers aren't all that great. I would know."

 _Mine was,_ Aang wants to say. _He was, but no longer is, because the Fire Nation decided to keep the Avatar all to themselves. And now he's here, and it's my job to guide him, and I don't even know how to do that properly._

The minutes ooze by, and they sit in silence. Aang feels Zuko's shallow breaths under his head and matches their rhythm, slipping softly into half-wakefulness.

* * *

 **ZUKO**

He blinks, and there before him sits the airbender, not the same one he closed his eyes on just moments ago. "Tenzin? I can't believe… it worked! I can speak to you."

Tenzin nods. "What is on your mind, Avatar Zuko?"

"I need your help, Tenzin. There's a spirit rampaging in Meikuang, seizing villagers and carrying them off to God knows where. I've got to get rid of it."

His predecessor considers him gravely. "Get rid of it? Why?"

Zuko's thoughts stutter to a halt, expecting advice, a panacea, but instead meeting a challenge. "Well… because it's destroying the village. I'm the Avatar; I can't just let those people be torn from their homes. At this rate, there won't be anyone left to protect," he says a little defensively.

"And what provoked it? Spirits do not attack humans without reason. Why did it choose this village for its unfortunate attentions?"

"… I don't know," Zuko admits. Now that he thinks about it, it seems rash for him to immediately jump to conclusions about the unknown spirit.

Tenzin fixes him with a stern look. "Spirits existed in this world long before humans came into being. Before that, nature reigned supreme, and the spirits came and went as they pleased. Look around you, Zuko. Do you see what they see?"

Even before Zuko looks, he realizes that they're not in the small barn. The air around him is smoky and sharp with the scent of broken pine needles and rotting wood. They're on the mountainside surrounding Meikuang, and understanding strikes Zuko like lightning felling a tree in the forest—in the forest that once flourished here, that is.

"The war is affecting the spirits. The coal mine! All the deforestation, and disturbing the mountain's roots, laying waste to the land. The spirit of the mountain can't be happy."

"No," Tenzin agrees. "I can't say that it would be."

"But it's not the villagers' fault," Zuko defends. "They're not the ones fueling the mine. The Fire Nation—"

And there it is again, that bone-deep feeling of self-loathing, staring him right in the face.

"Neither is it your fault. All the same, it falls to you to right this wrong. Spirits do not distinguish between humans. If one wrongs them, all have wronged them."

"But how will I find a way to destroy the coal mine? That's the source of all our problems."

" _You_ are the way," Tenzin says obscurely. "Find yourself, and you will find the solution."

 _Not. Helping._

ZZZ

He jolts awake—well, he wasn't _really_ asleep—and the first thing he notices is that Aang is resting against him, side pressed to his side, most definitely asleep. Toph lies sprawled closer to the door. He carefully dislodges Aang's sleeping form, trying not to think too hard about how that happened, and slips out of the barn to see if the moonless night will have any answers for him.

 _Find yourself, and you will find the solution_.

A stream trickles by the edge of the property. He cups his hands to drink, but the astringent taste has him spitting it out immediately. Under firelight, he sees why: the water is milky-grey with ash and dust, contaminated by the coal slurry from the mine.

He could bend the ash out of the water to make it drinkable, but the stream will keep flowing, its murky contents continuing downstream to poison the soil, plants, animals, and humans until it reaches the sea. Zuko lets his legs fold under him and gazes blankly into the stream, not that he can actually see his reflection in the starlit water.

Only once before has he seen a place so cheerless: the village on stilts in the river that he and his cousin had sailed past in another lifetime, it seems. That river must have faced a similar fate, choked by waste and pollution. The Fire Nation does not spare its own, either.

There was a river spirit that was supposed to protect the village, but it was long gone—that was why the village was falling to pieces. He smiles at the irony. To think that the Avatar had walked among them that day but was helpless to succor them.

 _The Avatar is the bridge between our world and the spirit world,_ Lu Ten had said. Zuko watches the charcoal sky turn to the silver of dawn and considers what he has to do. It's a new day, and an end to this eternal dusk.

ZZZ

"Are you sure the spirit will help us destroy the mine?" Toph asks. "If it were that easy, someone would have talked it into doing that ages ago. It might not even come. Maybe it'll decide that tonight just isn't the night."

"It will come. Just wait," Zuko says. He kneels to touch the ground, trying to resonate with the spirit, wherever it is. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, trying to call it with his mind. Minutes or hours pass, he doesn't know, but his knees are practically numb when he feels it at last.

"Is it just me or is the air suddenly… angry?" Aang says.

"How can air be angry?" Toph ridicules.

"That's just how it feels, I can't explain it! Like the air wants to strangle me."

"It's not just you, Aang," Zuko says. The air, brisk and chilled already, turns glacial. If the trees still had leaves, they would be rattling with the wind roaring through them, like some demon awakened from slumber. The ground shakes, but not the way it does when Toph earthbends, isolated blocks of earth rumbling underfoot. This tremor originates from far below the mountain. He intuits it before he sees it, a heavy presence approaching that dulls his ears and muffles his breath. It's like a storm cloud descended to earth. It's the spirit, and it is not happy.

They'd asked about what it looked like in town today, and the general consensus was: a huge, murderous, walking tree. They weren't wrong (well, perhaps about the murderous part—Zuko will reserve his judgment for later). He cranes his head up towards the spirit, its height too great to be mistaken for an actual tree, at least three times as tall as Appa. The luminous yellow eyes, located high on the trunk, are also a bit of a giveaway. Its feet are huge and broad like tree roots, and ropes of moss and scraggly underbrush trail from its entire body. Its legs are so long that it could cross the entire village in a dozen strides, no doubt.

"This is amazing!" Toph exclaims. "I've never felt such a huge thing moving before!"

"Shh, Toph, don't let it hear you calling it a 'thing,'" Aang cautions.

The spirit creaks to a stop a few dozen yards from them, its lamp-like eyes fixed, unblinking, on them. Zuko figures this would be as good a time as any to address it.

"Great spirit, thank you for coming. Please, listen to me. I want to help you, provided that you stop tearing down the village and the people who live here. They are not your enemy."

The spirit gives no indication that it has heard him, but advances towards them slowly, menacingly.

"Maybe it doesn't understand human talk," Toph says as it draws still closer.

"Guys, I think maybe we should get OUT OF THE WAY—" Aang says, not a moment too soon, as long branches of arms bear down on them from above, nearly knocking him off his feet.

"Maybe it'll only be able to understand me if I talk to it in the spirit world." Zuko gets down and raises a wall of earth to crouch behind, pressing his palms together.

"Seriously, you want to go into the spirit world _now?"_

"Just hold it off for a bit! I've got to—make it see that we're trying to help, that we can stop the Fire Nation…" He closes his eyes and concentrates on reaching out to the spirit, willing it to listen to him.

 _I am the Avatar, the bridge between your world and ours. Please, hear me out. We have a common enemy. I can help you reclaim your home._

Aang and Toph's voices and the rushing wind around them fade away, and only the sound of Zuko's own intonation to the spirit reverberates in his head. Suddenly, the spirit responds, and there is no question as to whether it understands.

It speaks, not with words, but with _pain_ —interminable pain, searing him, spreading all along his limbs, threatening to tear his sense of self from his body. He shares the sensation of its very being convulsing in agony as the trees hallowing this ground were cut down. The pain redoubles with every branch that hits the forest floor, every root ripped entirely from the ground; he can see it all as if he were there.

It doesn't stop. The Fire Nation soldiers burn the remnants of the forest for good measure. Only the oldest, strongest tree stumps endure. The spirit's grief consumes the night, infiltrating Zuko's mind with a feral rage. He may be the bridge between the two worlds, but bridges can be swept away. It hurts _, it hurts_ , this tide of pain, and there is no reprieve.

* * *

 **AANG**

 _Oh spirits. I had one job: guard Zuko's body, and look how that went._

"This is crazy!" Aang yells as he sends a blast of air at the spirit, trying to dislodge Zuko from its grasp. "Hold it still, Toph!"

"I'm trying! This is harder than it looks!" She encases the spirit's legs in earth, rooting it to the spot, but cracks start to form almost immediately. "What happened to not disrespecting spirits, anyways?"

"That was before it decided to crush Zuko into jelly!" Zuko, who is currently lifeless as an enlightened wet rag in the hands of an angry spirit, could his timing get any worse?

The tree-spirit remains unrelenting. If anything, it's crushing him even more tightly, and nothing they throw at it can stop it. It breaks loose of its earth shackles, one hand still clutching Zuko's unresponsive body, and before he can call out a warning, it sweeps down and flings Toph away with its other arm. He aims a discus of air just in time to slightly break her fall—bad call. The spirit goes for him instead, surprisingly agile as it kicks him (maybe baby tree-spirits have their own little soccer leagues, just like Earth Kingdom kids) into a gnarled stand of torn tree stumps. He struggles to focus his eyes on the chaos before him

 _It's going to kill him. The Avatar will die, and you'll lose him again._

 _Please,_ he intones to whoever is listening. _Save him._

Miraculously, someone answers his prayers. Suddenly, Zuko's body tenses with a hidden energy. The spirit startles and makes as if to drop him, but he doesn't fall. He twists in midair, and a colossal funnel of air spirals upwards to catch him.

 _I don't remember teaching him that._ It must be some unique Avatar power, that's the only explanation. Zuko's eyes glow, but it doesn't seem to be a conscious reaction. He reaches one hand out towards the spirit and touches it between its unearthly eyes. It bows its head slightly, almost in deference. _Well, if I'd known that was all it took…_

An ethereal, blinding white light sparks into being at the point of their contact, growing outwards until it overshadows the two of them. Aang shields his eyes, and when it's dimmed enough for him to see, it takes him a moment to understand.

"What's going on?"

Aang rises, trying to stem the sudden impulse to kneel in abjection before the Zuko-spirit. "You've never seen anything like it, Toph. I mean it."

"What happened to Zuko? Where is he?"

"Well, let's just say that when he talked about being the bridge between the two worlds… he meant it, literally."

The spirit's eyes are no longer cold yellow, but warm amber and surprisingly familiar. He wants to say he's imagining things, but the left side of its face is now glossy and bare of bark, like it's been burned away… scarred, he thinks. Its whole body radiates a dim, ghostlike glow; no one could mistake it for the same animated tree it was just moments ago. The spirit proves what Aang hardly dares believe when it suddenly glides into motion, not walking, but _bending,_ the earth beneath its heels pushing it forwards into a stride much faster than its initial ponderous gait.

"Come on, Toph, let's go! That coal mine's going down tonight!" He flicks his glider open and takes off.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Toph follows in the tree-spirit's massive wake, "but did Zuko just turn into a giant earthbending tree?!"

* * *

 **AZULA**

"Come on, stop moping. The earth's not going to bend itself."

Azula doesn't budge from her slumped recline on the couch. She usually doesn't lounge around doing nothing, but lately it seems that even when she does as much as she can, it's in vain. For almost three weeks now, she's been trying to learn earthbending. Their lessons can't even be qualified as trying, which implies some degree of success, however limited. Azula hasn't succeeded in moving even a pebble.

For the most part, she had managed to get Zhao to stop sitting in on their sessions, citing his presence to be distracting. He acquiesces, though not without skepticism—divided attention isn't something she's ever had a problem with when training firebending. For the past two days, however, he's adamantly refused to be barred from the training room, and he's witnessed more than one instance in which Azula blatantly fails to earthbend in spite of putting on her best show. Haru can't spot her every move, not when Zhao's watching like a hawk. She chalks it up to stress, but she knows it won't satisfy Zhao or her father forever.

"I know you think you can't do it, but you don't know that for sure," Haru continues. He's standing a respectful distance across the room, but Azula still resents the closeness in his wheedling tone. He's not like Mai or Ty Lee; he's meant to teach her, not befriend her. But now, given that he can't do the former, it seems he's throwing himself into the latter with equal fervor. _What a spirit to behold,_ she lauds somewhat bitterly.

"I do know it, though," she says, letting one leg dangle indolently off the side of the couch. "I've known it since before we met."

"What do you mean?"

She twists more fully in his direction. "I tried to earthbend, the night Father told me I was the Avatar. See that gargoyle of an incense burner over there?"

Haru locates the phoenix statue, sadly toppled on its side since the morning Azula woke from dreams of jasmine tea and her brother's last words to her.

"I should have been able to make it move at least an inch. As it is…"

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Haru watching her carefully before turning back to the statue. "What is this doing in your room, anyways? What is all this junk?"

He gestures at the floor and all the numerous offerings and parcels scattered across it, presents from her birthday that she hasn't bothered to go through. Jewelry, fancy silks, perfumes, books, and the like: she has no use for them.

"Trinkets and trifles," she dismisses. "Help yourself, though I doubt any of it will suit you."

For a while, the only sound is Haru poking around the riffraff, and Azula closes her eyes, trying to will away the tide of panic and bile threatening to burst its floodgates.

"Father was wrong," she finally says. It feels blasphemous to say it out loud, to even think it, but it's true. "I'm not the Avatar."

Haru ignores her in favor of picking up a small wooden box with two carved salamanders entwined for a clasp. "Hey, look at this."

Azula wonders if he has a death wish. How can he be so calm in the face of the fact that she isn't what he needs her to be? Is he just in denial? Does he really think she'll come through for him, that she's hiding her real abilities to pull out of her pocket later?

Haru reads aloud from the note attached to the box. "From the village of Yan in the east, a gift for Princess Azula's sixteenth birthday, in honor and deference of her firebending genius. These smoke-rolls, which we term _cigarettes,_ upon ignition will produce a fragrant incense that heightens your senses and enhances your abilities. In the hopes that they will serve you well." He opens it and fishes out a short stick wrapped in thin paper. "Hm. They stink, like tar and coal. Why would anyone think that they'd make a good gift?"

"I don't know, I could use enhanced abilities right about now. Hand them here."

He sighs, crosses the room and laboriously ascends the shallow steps leading to her repose, as if it takes him great effort to drop one cigarette in her open palm. She holds it to her nose. The thin paper, she sees now, is a wrapper for some mixture of dried leaves inside. "They do stink," she concedes. "Well, here goes nothing."

She sits up and lights the open end with one finger. It catches, and a thin trail of pungent smoke streams out. It tickles and burns at her nose, her lungs unwilling to accept the acrid fumes.

"How is this supposed to help me at all?" she demands, glaring at Haru as if it were his idea for her to burn what amounts to an odorous paper candle in the hopes of pacifying some ancestral spirit and redeeming her current dismal situation.

"Well, my guess is that you'll have better luck if you actually put the other end in your mouth and inhale. Then take it out so that you're not constantly getting smoke in your face," Haru suggests, surprisingly sage.

She tries it, not expecting much, but as she inhales, feeling the smoke fill her chest instead of air, something yields in her—slowly but surely, the smoke begins to work its magic. She swallows, and it's as if she's stepped out from a musty, sunken cave into broad daylight. She can hear so clearly, every shift of Haru's toes on the floor, the murmur of two servants in the hall outside, and the dying light of the sunset from the window is brighter, warmer. She feels her blood in her veins coursing more rapidly, more purposefully. She stands in one abrupt motion, and Haru steps back slightly.

"How did you know that would work?" The cigarette remains clenched between her fingers, still gently oozing smoke.

"Some people back home smoked, pipes, mostly," he says, his expression schooled to reveal nothing of his homesickness. That's some progress, then. "My father did, and many others. I guess it's less of a tradition over here."

She lifts the cigarette to her lips again and sucks down as much smoke as she can. Her lungs feel like an overinflated beach ball, stretched too tight. It's a pleasant kind of stress, and Azula holds her breath in for several moments. She exhales in one long gust. She feels like she could do anything right now: fly to the moon and back, duel a dragon, duel her father, conquer Ba Sing Se singlehandedly…

…but what matters is that she can earthbend.

Can she?

"Maybe this is what I've needed all along," she muses aloud. "A little extra push."

Her eyes alight on the phoenix statue, still lying forlornly on its side. The smoke rolls through her veins like a rising river ready to burst its levies and flood its banks, sweeping away everything in its path, herself included. She drops the cigarette on the ground and grinds it out absently beneath one shoe, already moving to focus on the stone that she's about to bend. She knows in that instant that if she crooks her knees and steps into an overhanded strike, just so—

—

—

—

"Princess?"

Haru sounds worried, almost as if he's concerned about her standing frozen in position for over a minute now, futility flooding every muscle and vein in her body. The stone phoenix remains fallen on the ground before her. She relaxes her stance but avoids his eyes.

"Give me another one," is all she says.

She lights the second cigarette and waits for that rush, for the sudden sensation of exceeding her body's limits, and it comes, it does, but now it's dampened by the realization that the power she experiences is false. No smoky balm can heal her of her inability to bend anything other than fire.

The tiny ingot of flame at the tip of the cigarette flares red as she breathes in again. She holds it away from her mouth, watching it subside and slowly give way to flaky ash.

Her spirit is too bright to be extinguished, her father had once said of her. Now she knows, he was referring to her scintillating Avatar spirit, which in the end was nothing more than fool's gold.

"Azula, it's all right."

No, it's not. Everything she's supposed to be was a lie. A column of ash falls off from the cigarette, overcome by its own weight. The exposed flame beneath glows red once more.

"You've never really seen me firebend before."

"No."

She lets the smoke mix into her body. "Before this Avatar nonsense, it was my most precious gift. Now, it's just taken for granted. It's just normal." Her voice cracks slightly; she's mortified to realize that her eyes are slightly glassy with unshed tears.

 _It's just worthless,_ she thinks, but she loses the words on the way to her mouth, her thoughts too distraught to keep them in order, and what comes out instead is a thin stream of flame. Her breath of fire, but without intent behind it, it's weak and for some reason… tinged with black?

It must be the smoke, its inky plumes tarring her fire and polluting even this part of her that remains whole and useful to her father. Very well, then. She may as well indulge.

Fire bursts out of her throat, streams forth like a plague, stained dark through and through. It fills the room, and she finds her voice at last, gulping out desperate sobs as the flames surround her. The dark mood that's taken over her for the past few days escapes her body and soul, vaulting her into this pitch-black inferno. Again and again, fire blooms from her mouth like deepest shadows until her jaw aches, her heart aches, her entire self is swallowed up by the pain of falling from a pedestal she was never meant to stand on.

* * *

 **HARU**

He reacts instinctively, raising a wall of stone from the ground in front of Azula, large enough to contain her infernal meltdown. It doesn't surprise him, really; this has been in the works for days now. Even now, the Fire Lord is probably receiving reports of her inconsistent performance. It can't be easy, being the subject of that much scrutiny.

The torrent ceases at last, and Haru hesitantly lets down the barriers. Azula huddles on the ground, looking completely worn out, arms gathered close around herself. He resists the urge to go over to her at once only for her to flare up again. He can't blame her.

An odd gulp escapes her throat. She's… hiccupping? Spirits, she definitely doesn't want him to see her like this. But he can't do nothing. He dares to approach her, ready to duck beneath an impromptu shield if needed, and settles on the floor facing away from her.

She stirs, looks at the ground or maybe nothing at all as she says, "Salamanders sometimes eat their own siblings."

Haru casts her a worried look, and she clarifies. "My brother Zuko was banished from the Fire Nation just weeks ago for speaking out against our father in a war meeting. He shouldn't even have been there. I made him go with me. Shortly afterwards, he drowned at sea."

So not even the Fire Lord's children are exempt from his wrath. "I'm so sorry. You must miss him."

She shrugs, affecting indifference. "It's more that I don't have a safety net anymore. Zuko was always the failure, and now it's as if I'm in his place. How can I face my father after this?"

He understands. Azula isn't perfect, but she's been raised to believe she is. Now that she knows she isn't, she can't cope.

"I think the real question is: how can _he_ face _you_? How could he be so foolish as to think you were the Avatar, without being sure?" Haru says, his voice steely and cold as fire is hot.

She lets out a shaky laugh— _not back to full speed, then_. He reaches over and grabs the cigarette box, offers it to her, against his better judgment, admittedly, but she declines. The entwined salamanders fall discarded to the floor.

"What about you, though? If you can't teach me earthbending, you're useless to the Fire Lord. You said yourself you'll be terminated."

 _Yes, that has in fact been on the back of my mind, believe it or not._ "I rather thought you're not supposed to develop attachments to your servants?"

"Well said." There's the glimmer of a smile in her voice. "But what if…"

 _What if we'd met under different circumstances?_

"What if the real Avatar is out there somewhere in the Fire Nation? We just don't know who it is yet. If we found them, you could still train them in earthbending."

And there it is, that slight tinge of relief and confidence returning to her ember eyes, beginning to grow in her again.

Salamanders also have the ability to regenerate lost limbs. There's hope for them yet.

* * *

 **A/N:** Writing notes: archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/18817078


	7. Senlin

**ZUKO**

Zuko has had a scant few weeks to get used to the idea of being the Avatar. Airbending and earthbending, he could wrap his head around, but fusing with a spirit—nothing could have prepared him for this. He's not conscious of the change until it occurs, and even then, nothing seems entirely real. He can feel the spirit's mental presence brushing against his own like a scratchy blanket. It seems to cringe back from him, but Zuko will not be restrained. This is the only way they can win.

 _The people who burned this mountain will not stop at that. Even if the trees grow back, they will cut them down again. You must help me ensure that they leave here tonight._

He feels a tendril of doubt from the spirit. _How can we prevail against them?_ Zuko gets the impression of all-consuming fire, overwhelming the spirit, preventing it from defending its charges.

The spirit doesn't really see shapes or colors. Everything appears in terms of light. Toph and Aang are small pools of energy, glowing brightly in his wake, but Zuko senses something much brighter, miles away, deep under them. It's the coal mine, and the people in it. They've got to act quickly.

 _Together, we have no cause to fear the flames, great spirit,_ he thinks, broadcasting reassurance.

 _Senlin._

Senlin. The embodiment of the forest, as old as the earth itself.

 _I will protect you._

* * *

 **AANG**

They're unstoppable, with the force of the spirit on their side. One smash of its branch-arm knocks out the gates to the mine, and as soldiers stream forth, it presses on, inexorable against the tide of puny humans. It's like a wall of stone, no matter that it is living branch and root given the power to walk among mortals.

He and Toph clear out its wake as it carves a path deeper into the mine. Aang brushes soldiers off like flies; they knock into each other, buffeted about by the gyrus of concentrated air that he spins. Beside him, Toph flings unwary Fire Nation grunts every which way, creating a lethal radius around herself. But the fight is far from over. Ahead of them, the spirit smashes its way into a vast underground chamber. It's clear that this is where the majority of the ore refinement takes place. Heavy machinery and assembly lines cover every available surface, and huge furnaces glow even at this late hour. It is still more heavily defended than the tunnels that led them here.

Gasps of shock and dismay quickly give way to renewed offense as the guards rally their strength. Aang stops short. If even half of them have firepower, the spirit is going to become a torch, burning to light the way, however briefly, in the endless darkness of this war.

"Toph, we've got to help!" He evades several guards, zipping away on his air scooter. "They'll burn him alive!"

"What are you so worried about? He's going to be fine."

The soldiers rally and fire, and even as Aang disengages from the newest wave of assailants, the spirit disappears behind a wall of fire.

 _Oh, spirits._

The wall becomes a giant hemisphere that reaches to the ceiling and all but swallows up any view of the spirit, as well as any chance Zuko has of surviving this. Aang starts forward, desperate to reach him, but Toph throws out an arm and stops him.

"Wait and watch, Twinkletoes." Even as she speaks, the fiery corona of the sphere begins to disintegrate, and Aang can make out the spirit's figure behind it, miraculously unharmed and dousing the flames with great swipes of its arms.

"Firebender, remember?" Toph says succinctly. "Have a little faith next time. Come on, Zuko can handle himself. We need to go find the prisoners; I can feel where they're being kept."

 _Was it lack of faith or surfeit of care, though?_ he wonders as he follows in Toph's wake. Either way, it's causing him to lose balance with himself.

AAA

They make their way back towards town with little to impede them. The earthbenders lead the way, clearing rubble and fleeing soldiers alike with ease. As they draw near to the village, they're greeted by a group of townspeople gathered outside, likely attracted by the sounds of tumult under the mountain and the spectacle of the Fire Nation army retreating like a herd of disarrayed camel-llamas. At the sight of the spirit and the freed prisoners, torches tremble and voices rise in shock and wonder. Aang ignores it all and turns his attention to the spirit, its movements slow and sluggish after the battle.

The glow from its core brightens momentarily to blinding brilliance, obscuring its form, but even as he shields his eyes, it dies down, and the spirit reappears cradling Zuko's motionless body in its gnarled hands. Aang rushes to catch him. He gazes down at the Avatar, struck by the familiarity of the situation to their first meeting, which Zuko wasn't awake for either. Perhaps the entire ordeal has been too much—who knows what toll fusing with the spirit took on him? He rests Zuko's head in the crook of his elbow, willing him to regain consciousness, worry prickling the back of his neck like a darkling chill.

In the periphery of his vision, Kani embraces her lost husband, tears of joy streaming down both their faces. It occurs to Aang that this is what love looks like even after, and indeed because of years of separation. Like two halves of a whole, light and dark, day and night, one soul in two bodies reunited through the passion of love, and what should happen if one half is consigned to the void? Well, he's only lived in the shadow of that for sixteen years, looking in from the outside on his mother's pain. Now he's there where she was, pleading for the Avatar to return.

Around him hum the excited voices of the townspeople reunited with their loved ones, but Aang cannot count himself among their number.

Then Zuko opens his eyes, and for a moment, they still glow a heavenly white. It fades, and Aang is left gazing down into warm amber, the color of joy and redemption.

* * *

 **ZUKO**

The longer they are fused together, the more Zuko feels bonded to Senlin, as if he is gradually becoming one with the spirit. As they blast their way back out of the mine, he feels a strange hum through the earth: not vibrations indicating movement nearby, but a soft flow, a sensation of gentle running water. It calls to him melancholically, like a hymn to a blue hour.

The river by the mine—of course. Its song pulls him in, and as they hit the open air again, he diverges from the path of the crowd, makes for the sound and taste of water, polluted as it is.

He tests the waters, draws it up through his roots, and the taste (at least, that's how he would describe it as a human) is bitter, piercing with the magnitude of the despair and resignation of those who were forced to work in the mine for long years without the hope of rescue. He has tasted enough.

With vast strides, he steps into the river and plants himself firmly in the center. The water comes up to mid-thigh, and in the dawn light, it must look like a monolith, enduring as stone, but far less passive. The river around him begins to churn, and the water level actually sinks as Senlin pulls it in through its roots. The water enlivens it, causing it to physically grow with its ascent through the spirit's veins. Zuko senses the coal dust and sediments within the water and pulls them out of Senlin's body, casting it away from him into a caustic pile on the opposite riverbank. The water rises still higher until a fountain of cleansed water erupts forth from his mouth, spilling back into the river at a dizzying rate.

 _Water is the element of change._

He can feel their bond weakening, though, even as he steps from the river, its water now running clear and wholesome under the greying sky. Zuko suddenly feels immensely tired, the weight of Senlin's limbs dragging him down. They've got to separate; he can't sustain this. Before that, however, there is something he must do.

He projects thoughts of the village, of Meikuang in figurative ashes because of the Fire Nation's brutality and the harm done by Senlin itself. He dreams up the villagers and substitutes faces from his own past for their lost loved ones since he doesn't know what they look like—the spirit doesn't precisely know either.

 _They all have families,_ he conveys. _Just as the trees of this razed forest were your family. Their loss has been immeasurable. Please, Senlin, protect them. As the Avatar and a friend ,I ask this of you._

If a huge, immortal tree could feel satisfaction, this would be it, Zuko imagines as Senlin effuses its acceptance.

 _Agreed. Go in peace, Avatar. You have done the spirits a great service…_

ZZZ

His first thought upon regaining consciousness: _I feel a lot more tired than I did before I went to sleep._

Second: _where did all these people come from? Toph's here, and the villagers, and a bunch I don't recognize?_

Third: _where's Aang?_

Fourth, as he notices whose arms are cradling him: _I have got to stop waking up like this._

Fifth, as he loses his balance trying to rise and Aang instantly steadies him _: maybe it's not so bad._

"What happened?" he asks, though he can guess. The past few hours are a blur in his mind.

"You fused with the tree spirit, drove the Fire Nation out of this village, freed the prisoners, and destroyed the coal mine. All in a day's work," Toph explains, dusting her hands off jauntily.

"Well, me, Toph, and the earthbenders helped, but that's pretty much the gist of it. Also, you were waterbending towards the end," Aang adds.

"What?" Zuko shakes his head, disbelieving. "I've never done that before."

"It's hard to think of an element you _weren't_ bending, to be honest," Toph remarks. "Water, earth, fire, oh wait! You didn't do any airbending, did you? I wonder why that is."

"Toph," Zuko scolds, but Aang is chuckling softly, so he lets it go.

"So you're the Avatar."

They turn to find Kani addressing them, and by her side a broad white-haired man whom Zuko assumes is her husband.

"Yes, I am," Zuko answers, not really seeing any way out of this.

Predictably, this ensures a babbling hubbub of frantic whispers. It's surely the liveliest the village has been in five years, he thinks with a grimace.

"He's the Avatar?!" — "He can earthbend and waterbend!" — "He can turn into a giant tree!" — "He can firebend?" — "How can he firebend if he's a tree?" — "Well, he's from the Fire Nation, isn't he?" — "What business has he got here?" —

"Uh, calm down everyone," Aang begins, "there's no need to—"

"Oh for heaven's sake, will you listen to yourselves?" Toph exclaims over him. "Let's get some things straight." She stomps over, grabs a lit torch from one of the villagers, and throws it at Zuko. Too surprised to react any other way, he puts it out in midair, and it falls to the ground with an empty clatter.

"Yes, he's a firebender. Guess what? He also got rid of all the other mean, murderous firebenders for you." She jabs a finger in the direction of the collapsed mine. "Not to mention he got your loved ones back and appeased the angry tree spirit. He deserves nothing but your thanks."

The murmuring subsides a bit, and some of the villagers look appropriately chagrined. Zuko thinks he should probably smooth things over a bit. No one told him public speaking was going to be part of the Avatar's job.

"People of Meikuang, my name is Lee. I'm the Avatar, and I am sorry to have deceived you. It's true that we come from different places, but I know the pain you have suffered. I was torn from my family not long ago. I am no longer welcome in my own homeland. Your home, however, is safe now from the Fire Nation and from the spirits' anger.

"Senlin, the spirit of the mountain, will always protect you as long as you respect the forest and nurture its regrowth. You and I both may never be able to forget the losses you have incurred and the wrongs done to you, but I hope that today, we can at least begin to forgive."

* * *

 **TOPH**

Can Zuko forgive himself, though? He can't even bear to give them his real name, choosing a familiar, universal name like Lee, instead of _Zuko,_ so obviously foreign and unwelcome.

Toph doesn't know what she looks like, and she doesn't care. She knows who she is. Zuko, it seems, is trying too hard to forget.

* * *

 **ZUKO**

"Go in peace," Kani tells them. "You have our gratitude, Lee, now and forever." She smiles, but there's no real mirth in it.

"You didn't find your son, did you?" Aang says.

Tyro shakes his head. "Not long after he was captured, some big shot naval officer visited the mine. He was looking for someone, but he wouldn't say for what. He took Haru away. I doubt we'll see him again."

 _Zhao_ , Zuko realizes. _But why would he need an earthbender?_

"Fate must have meant for us to meet like this," he says. "Just before I found out I was the Avatar, I was banished from my home. I was to be sent to this very mine as punishment, but fate had other plans for me. Now I am here, and I promise you, I will bring your son back to you. I believe it is fated to happen."

Kani's eyes fill with tears, her tired mouth lifting ever so slightly with hope. "Thank you, Avatar Lee. I believe in you."

Zuko thinks of the very same promise he made to another woman not long ago and wonders if he can keep either one.

ZZZ

The wind on their faces is familiar and soothing as they continue their journey. Appa growls, glad to be flying again. Aang sits cross-legged on Appa's neck, guiding him through the currents, away from the village and off towards who knows where. Toph lies back, the picture of relaxation; Zuko would never have guessed that she hates flying as much as she does. She pulls out a lump of clay and idly flexes it in her open palm, transforming it at will into odd shapes.

"A souvenir of sorts, and the only earth I can bring with me in the godforsaken sky," she explains. "It's from the ground where the spirit stood before it released you, Zuko."

"While we're in Fire Nation territory, call me Lee," Zuko says.

Aang looks back at them. "Why? Do you not like your real name?"

"The soldiers who escaped will alert higher command. They'll know that the Avatar is back, and they'll be on the lookout for me." A twisted smile graces his lips. "I'll probably have a higher bounty on my head than you, Toph."

"As if!" She rejects the notion.

"What about the name 'Lee'?" Aang asks. "Does it have any special meaning to you?"

 _To stand firm._

"There are a million Lees," he says. "What's one more?"

* * *

 **OZAI**

"My lord, a message from the Fire Sages at Crescent Island."

He pauses, his brush hovering over the blank parchment. "I have made my views on their opinions clear. I will not receive any messages from them."

"It concerns the statue of Avatar Roku, sir." The servant in the doorway cowers slightly at his own temerity, but he is right to interrupt—this is a concern that requires the Fire Lord's immediate attention. Commander Zhao's promotion will have to wait. He accepts the scroll and unfurls it.

"Fire Lord Ozai,

Your Majesty must know that the statue of Avatar Roku has been quiescent for sixteen years. However, last night at sunset, his eyes glowed, and the whole temple was lit with a sacred light. This can mean only one thing: the Avatar, wherever and whomever he may be, is alive. He has accessed the Avatar state, which grants him power far beyond the abilities of any bender alive."

Ozai doesn't miss the slight jab at that old disagreement between himself and the sages, but in light of recent events, it seems some reconsideration is in order.

Last night around sunset, Azula was reported to be in great distress in her rooms, throwing a fire tantrum as if she were six and not sixteen, if her servants are to be believed. The palace has eyes and ears, and it is his place to be the head, after all. Thus, at the time of Avatar Roku's stirring, Azula was nowhere near the Avatar state. Coupled with Zhao's disappointing news about her training, he feels a shadow of worry fall across the room. If she is not the Avatar, then what remains?

Zuko is dead, presumably. The next Avatar would be born into the Earth Kingdom, and the same dilemma that faced his forefathers falls to him: locating and terminating the Avatar. But how can it be? The new Avatar would be just weeks old and surely not in a position to sustain the Avatar state.

Zuko lives, then.

"Avatar Zuko," he says to the sprig of whispering starbloom in the vase on his desk. "So you were right all along, Ursa."

After she was gone, he'd had a servant continue maintaining a small portion of her greenhouse. Ozai is not a sentimental man. The poisonous white flower that grows there still serves not as a remembrance of his traitorous wife, but as a symbol of what he'd had to abandon in the name of his ambitions. Azulon would have had him sacrifice his daughter, the Avatar. He had to be removed, the old exchanged for new: the new age of the Fire Nation's rule. Now, Ozai might as well do as his father had commanded. In her present state, Azula doesn't hold a candle to the power that Zuko could have. She's not utterly without her uses, though.

He will have to handle this carefully, with the precision of lightning striking a single tree in a forest. With a stab of one irritated finger, he sets the starbloom flower on fire, watching as the flames spread down its stem until they are extinguished in the water. He cannot afford to have things go to ruin again.

OOO

"Much depends on the success of this mission. You have my trust and my hopes, Commander Zhao."

"I will not disappoint you, sire." A moment's hesitation, then: "But… what will become of the erstwhile Avatar and her teacher?"

"That is not your concern. Azula remains the Crown Princess," Ozai says. "Presently, I have no plans for the earthbender."

"Azula lied to you, to us both, about her earthbending skills. You banished Prince Zuko for far less." Zhao clutches his mission scroll firmly to his chest with both hands, as if it's an anchor holding him fast to his dreams of honor and promotion. Ozai knows what kind of a man he is, but he proves handy with his missions.

"Do not mention that name in my presence," he says without heat. What Zhao says is true, but he won't give the commander the satisfaction of being right just yet.

"Forgive me, my lord. But… you must know, the princess's mind has been clouded with guilt since she came to terms with the truth. Her thoughts and actions are unpredictable. Perhaps it would be best to temporarily remove her from the excitement of the palace and let her regain her clarity?"

 _That would be the pinnacle of idiocy._ There is no wiser decision than to keep one's friends close and one's enemies closer. Ozai is already on the verge of making enemies of both his children. But he knows that there are more ears listening to him now than Zhao knows, and he knows also how to leverage Azula's guilt and fear. He will flush her out of her broken mind like a queen bee smoked out of her hive, and then he will gather the sweet honey of her renewed loyalty and submission.

"I will think on it, Commander Zhao," he concedes, his voice deliberately loud and clear. "Dismissed."

* * *

 **AZULA**

She locks wide eyes with Haru across the tunnel he's discreetly carved for them several feet under Ozai's ministerial room. It connects to the ventilation pipes that carry air away from the room, as well as sound, and with it, the news of Azula's certain fall from grace. This is the beginning of the end. This is how it started with Zuko.

The fire in her palm wavers, threatening to pitch them into darkness. Her hand shakes; Haru reaches to steady it. His fingers circle her wrist with room to spare. He must be able to feel her pulse ricocheting under his thumb like a frightened deer's.

It's the realization that she really might lose favor with Ozai, completely, that renders her immobile. His disapproval looms like a cloud of thunderheads over her, soon to drench her in a torrent of loss and betrayal. So he would so easily discard her.

Fine. She will expedite the process. She'll find the Avatar herself, without his help or Zhao's interference. She can't expect anyone's support. Trust is for fools.

* * *

 **HARU**

"What do you think Zhao's mission is?" Haru wonders later, after they've slipped away undetected. They hadn't been privy to the details; all he knows is that it's Important.

"What does it matter? If I never see Zhao again, it will be too soon," Azula declares frankly. "We need to visit the Fire Sages. They'll be able to tell us the truth that my father doesn't seem to know: the truth about the Avatar."

"Are you sure this is the best course of action, Princess?" he says quietly, watching her blitz around the room in a flurry of packing. "You're not to leave the palace without the Fire Lord's permission. He may not be so quick to forgive your indiscretion, especially now that he knows the truth."

"None of that will matter when we bring back the real Avatar," she dismisses, briskly stuffing her hairbrush and half the contents of her dresser into a bag. "We'll search every inch of this country until we find them. Also, you can't go around wearing the palace garb in public; people will be instantly suspicious. I'll pack some of Zuko's old clothes for you; I know where his servants kept them after they cleared his room out. They're _so_ sentimental."

Haru looks on in bemusement at her manic state and tries to insert some degree of levelheadedness. This is better than depressed, fire-breathing Azula, but the scales seem to have tipped her right over to reckless and overly driven by instinct. "How exactly are we going to capture the Avatar? We have a total of four eyes and ears between the two of us. They could be anywhere."

"Let me worry about that. It's a small world."

"Have you actually been outside of the palace and into the countryside much?"

That gives her pause, though only briefly. "Not really, but how hard can it be? Ordinary people travel around the countryside all the time. My dear brother and cousin once spent an entire year doing just that."

That doesn't really reassure him, frankly. But what recourse does he have? Azula is his only ally here in a strange land, and vice versa. They're both outcasts, in a manner of speaking, so they've got to stick together. They have no other choice.

"All right," he says. "I trust you."

She spares him a brief glance, but a world of emotion passes between them there and then: surprise, reluctant gratitude, renewed determination. She nods and turns back to her preparations, and Haru thinks the tension and spasticity of her movements is slightly tempered by relief. He can only hope for the best from now on.

* * *

 **ZUKO**

"Wake up, Toph, we're stopping for the night," Aang calls as they touch down in a large clearing. They've been flying over an endless forest all day. "It doesn't look like there's going to be another place to land before dark."

"Okay," Toph grumbles. "Thank god for land, sweet land!" She jumps down from Appa, then freezes.

"What's wrong?" Zuko asks.

"We're not alone. There's an army surrounding this clearing. We have to go!"

"What?" Before they can move, soldiers rush out from around the forest, dressed in the colors of the Fire Nation army. Zuko ducks as fire blasts his way and sends up a wall of rock to shield himself. A literal army is a bit of an exaggeration; there can only be a few dozen, perhaps seventy.

 _I can't use firebending,_ he realizes. _Someone will make the connection, and more will come._ Earth it is, then. Behind him, Toph slams a group of soldiers into the ground, then knocks more into the trees. Aang whirls, his glider dispelling every attacker heading his way. Zuko attacks, but there are just too many of them. They're forced closer together, giving everything they've got just to fend off the ambush.

Suddenly, a shout goes up from the soldiers as arrows rain down from an unseen assailant. Zuko looks around for their source but sees no one.

"They're in the trees!" one of the soldiers shouts, before a rope drops from above and lassoes him up by the ankles. Two more meet the same fate in quick succession. Down from the trees leaps a lean figure in mismatched shoulder pads and armor. He wields two hook swords with ease, snagging two soldiers at once and flinging them to the ground.

"And down you go." He grins at Zuko, dark hair falling into his eyes.

"Hey, who are all these people?" Toph yells as more of their improbable saviors drop from the trees: a girl with short swords and red stripes of face paint, a huge, muscular man, a small boy in an overlarge helmet…? They engage the soldiers, and Zuko watches as the hook swords slash and burn.

"They're trying to help us, Toph!"

"Well, stay out of my way if you don't want me to annihilate you!"

There's plenty to go around, and gradually the tide thins. Zuko focuses on knocking their assailants out with his earthbending; Toph goes a little farther and knocks them completely out of the clearing with targeted strikes. Even as he does his fair share of routing the soldiers, Zuko can't help but notice Hook Swords and his leonine grace. He's clearly the leader, and though his troop seem rather patchwork and asymmetrical, he directs them confidently. He jumps in as needed and pulls back when he's not, weaving in and out of the fray with ease. It doesn't help matters that he seems to be ninety percent muscled arms and legs, and the synchronicity of his swords makes Zuko miss his own. More often than not, though, the soldiers who fall beneath his blades don't get back up.

"Focus, Lee!" Toph shouts. For a moment, he can't think of who Lee is. Then Hook Swords barrels in between him and an incoming sheet of fire, slinging the attacking firebender off his feet and away into the shadows of the forest before Zuko can even react. He looks back at Zuko for a fleeting moment, jet-black eyes bright with the fervor of battle.

 _This is not helping me focus at all._

At last, all the soldiers have fled. "Great job, everyone! But I'd say we had that nearly under control by the time you guys arrived," Aang says pridefully. Hook Swords and his gang stand before them, trying and largely failing to look very threatening.

"All the same, we appreciate your help," Zuko amends. "I'm Lee, and this is my sister, Toph. The gung-ho one is Aang."

"Hey!"

Hook Swords flashes a smile and takes a blade of grass out of his mouth before he speaks (did that really last the whole fight?). "I'm Jet, and these are my Freedom Fighters."

* * *

 **A/N:** Notes for this chapter consist of thoughts on characterizations, mainly Toph and Fire Lord Ozai: archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/19438978


	8. Falling Is Just Like Flying

**ZUKO**

"Why'd you introduce Toph as your sister?" Aang mutters as they traipse through the Freedom Fighters' arboreal hideout.

"Well, wouldn't it be a bit weird for a girl to be wandering around with two unrelated guys?"

"You know what's weird? These kids living in trees by themselves. I mean, it's awesome, but… where are their families?"

Jet looks back at them as they cross a bridge between two trees. "We _are_ each other's family," he says intensely. "We're all we've got. Blood doesn't connect us, but friends are just as good, wouldn't you say?"

Aang looks away. "I suppose."

The forest is spacious enough to house dozens of Freedom Fighters; the ones they met are only a fraction of the entire band. All these kids have lost their homes and families to the Fire Nation one way or another, Jet tells them. At some point, Aang succumbs to the temptation to soar off through the branches on his glider. The canopy is sparse enough to fly in, only crossed by the highest branches of the oldest, strongest trees.

Jet watches him go with a faint smile. "I never thought I'd witness such a sight. An airbender, in our forest."

"Well, don't get too used to it. He's one of a kind now," Toph says. She clings tightly to Zuko's arm as they cross yet another long bridge between the trees.

Jet shakes his head in sympathy. "It's unforgivable, what the Fire Nation has done to us all. I've never met a firebender I didn't want to run right through with my swords."

 _He instinctively assumes a 'for us or against us' stance,_ Zuko notes. _There is no neutral ground._

"When you say 'met', do you mean you've actually met and talked to any firebenders, or did you skip straight to the stabbing and killing part?" Toph asks flippantly.

"I did meet one who was decent, a long time ago," Jet admits. "A better man than most, but somehow, I don't think he was too thrilled with what he was."

Zuko knows that feeling all too well.

ZZZ

Over dinner, they regale the Freedom Fighters with stories of their travels through the Earth Kingdom, leaving out any mention of Zuko being the Avatar, of course. Toph delights especially in retelling her version of the Earth Rumble VI and the consequent bounty on her head. Jet seems most interested in their liberation of the prisoners at Meikuang.

"I'm impressed that you three managed to single-handedly storm a heavily armed garrison and win it back from the Fire Nation." Of course, he's missing the fact that they had the Avatar and the tree spirit on their side, but they can't very well mention that, can they?

"Oh, well, that was mostly Toph. She's a prodigy at earthbending. I've still got a lot to learn." It's eerily reminiscent of how it was with him and Azula.

"Don't be modest, Lee; I saw you do some amazing earthbending today. You've got a lot of potential. That, and your courage and commitment to fighting for what's right—I'd be unendingly grateful if all our Freedom Fighters were like you."

 _High praise._ Zuko tries not to lose his cool, glancing to the side instead of at Jet and the angularity of his body and the sincerity of his smile. No matter, he's losing it still. Aang saves him slightly by drawing attention to himself.

"You all aren't too shabby yourselves. This forest hideout is amazing! The only thing that would make it better is if you could fly everywhere. I know people who would die to learn gliding from a master like me." That last jab earns him a long-suffering sigh from Zuko.

"We have our limits," Jet says frankly. "But if we could, we would. Anything that gives us an advantage in this war is welcome. And that includes _anyone_."

He's hardly being subtle. Zuko feels a vein of warmth pass through him at Jet's invitation, something strangely foreign to him. He finds that he wants, no, _craves_ it suddenly, without warning.

"We'd love to help." He finally drills up the courage to look back at Jet and return the promise in his eyes. What it entails, though, is still up in the air.

"I'm glad."

ZZZ

He stands at the railing of one of the Freedom Fighters' tree houses and looks over the edge of the hewn platform at the forest floor. A light breeze stirs the treetops and sets the ropes between the trees to swaying gently. The labyrinthine network of pulleys and bridges spanning the forest is truly comprehensive, like a spider's web nestled high in the branches. Anyone living up here could move across almost the entire forest without touching the ground. Toph had refused to sleep in the treetops ("my feet would be blind as batgeese!"), and Aang decided to stay downstairs too ("batgeese aren't actually blind, but okay, whatever you say"). Zuko can make out their shapes below, as small as pebbles against a river bed. Appa's form at the base of the tree next to them is much more distinct.

"It's a long way to fall, isn't it?" Jet's voice behind him is a study in opposites, low-pitched but light-hearted, gravelly but tender.

"Falling is just like flying, but with a more permanent destination," Zuko says after a long moment's thought.

"That's true, I never thought of it that way." Jet settles his weight comfortably on his elbows, leaning over the rail next to Zuko. His long, interlaced fingers look smooth and almost fragile, no longer clenched around the handles of his hook swords. "Falling in love, though, that's not so bad."

"Same destination."

"Oh, don't be that way!" Jet laughs, a low chuckle tempered by the exhaustion of long grief and vigilance. "Why, Lee, did you get your heart broken once?"

"No, not in that sense. I was just thinking of people I loved. _Love,_ well, just because they're not… here anymore doesn't mean I stopped loving them. I used to think it was the other way around."

"How's that?"

"Oh, it's… it's silly," Zuko stammers self-consciously. "My mother used to take me to see a play, about this guy who was wronged by his enemy and separated from his girlfriend, and in the end, only the power of his love for her could set things right." _Great summary, Zuko, really captures the pathos and pain that the Dragon Emperor felt._ "It was in theater, with masks and everything, it wasn't real. But back then, it made me think that I could bring back the people I loved if I just _felt_ hard enough. Didn't work, obviously."

He's rambling, which is strange enough, but that he's letting himself do so with a stranger is frankly embarrassing. He can't bring himself to care, though.

"Ah." Jet nods. "I know what you mean. I lost my family when I was eight. The Fire Nation burned down my whole village."

 _And there's another strike for the tally of 'People Whose Lives My Forefathers Ruined'._

"I lost my mother. And my cousin… in the war. He was like a brother to me." Zuko looks over at Jet, and his eyes are dark with a sort of thrilling calm, a bewildering invitation that gives Zuko the courage (foolhardiness?) to say, "You remind me of him, a bit."

"Really?"

"Yeah." Zuko doesn't elaborate, though Jet seems to be waiting for him to do so. He knows what it is: the unrefusable charisma, the brilliant smile that remains confined largely to his eyes, the dual hook swords, that rakish joy and intrigue that would turn to revulsion if he knew Lee's true identity.

"And what about you?" Jet asks.

"What about me?"

"I know you didn't get that scar from a waterbender." Jet's standing on Zuko's left, his scar to the fore, evident even in the dim light. Zuko doesn't answer. "I'm sorry, that was too—"

"No, no, it's okay. I don't mind."

"You don't have to tell me."

"Thanks."

Jet looks like he wants to reach out and touch Zuko, his hands where they lie folded and closed, but thinks better of it. "You should get some rest, Lee."

"Yeah." Zuko pushes himself off the rail and looks around for the rope to slide down to the ground.

"Sure you don't want to sleep up here?" Jet hands him the rope; their fingers meet briefly, like the quickest of kisses, not daring to promise more.

 _All right then, give him a little to go on._ "Maybe another time," Zuko says passionlessly, in contrast to how his heart is running a strange tripping gait right now. He trusts Jet to see through that. These are the games they play.

* * *

 **AANG**

"You don't have to stay here on my account." Toph lies half inside of her earth tent, legs sticking out insolently from under its cover. "If you feel more at home flapping around in the trees, by all means do so."

"Thanks, Toph. I'm fine where I am." Aang lets the sarcasm roll off him like raindrops on a windowpane, just like Mom would say, except that today, the windowpane is more like a sponge that absorbs every iota of gloom and irritation. Maybe it's because Zuko isn't here. Aang knows he probably shouldn't get so attached, because 1) people aren't possessions to keep close to oneself always, and 2) true Air Nomads detach themselves from all worldly things.

"I've been thinking, maybe I should write a letter to my mom," he says. He feels like he's losing contact with the ways she taught him, and he can't let that happen _. I am the last airbender_. "Do you have any paper?"

"What use would I have for paper? Zuko might have some, though. He picked up another of my wanted posters a few weeks ago in town."

 _Oh no._ "He didn't tell me that."

Toph shrugs, bored by the conversation. "I'm sure there are plenty of things people don't tell you. It's not like they have to report every single detail of their lives to you."

 _Raindrops, windowpane. Raindrops, windowpane. Okay._ "All right, I'll go ask him for it."

"Just take it. What's the big deal?" Toph slams the sole of one foot down, and Zuko's pack bounces up from where it lies with everyone's things, next to Appa on the ground. It lands a few yards in front of Aang.

He feels a little guilty and sneaks a glance up towards the canopy, where he can barely make out Zuko near the top, talking with Jet. An irrational jealousy twinges in his gut.

Finally, he locates the paper scrunched deep in a corner of Zuko's bag. Aha! He unfolds it and turns it over…

…to find yet another thing, out of _plenty,_ that a certain person didn't tell him.

* * *

 **ZUKO**

As soon as he descends to level ground, Zuko can tell that something's wrong. Toph's sitting by her earth tent, but her posture is unusually straight and unmoving. Aang stands next to her, lips tight like he's about to play the Tsungi horn. Judging from the rigid slash of his eyebrows, it seems the context is rather less lighthearted. The muscles of his arms and chest stand out, as if it's taking every ounce of his strength to keep himself from leaping into furious action. Have they been arguing? It's utterly silent, though.

Toph twitches her head in his direction as soon as she senses him landing, and Aang's eyes track the movement. Suddenly, Zuko's on the receiving end of the most accusatory stare he's ever seen. If looks could kill…

"What's wrong?" he asks.

Wordlessly, Aang raises his left hand. He's holding the advert for _The Children of Fire._

Zuko suddenly feels as if the ground has been pulled out from under him, if that were even possible. Falling is not at all like flying, spirits save him. Aang advances several steps towards Zuko, flapping the paper in his face.

"Why didn't you tell me you were the son of the Fire Lord? Your scar's on the wrong side, but it's definitely you, _Prince Zuko._ "

"Aang, think about what you're saying," Toph speaks up. "If Zuko was still the Prince of the Fire Nation, why would he be traveling with us? An earthbender and _the last airbender?"_

"You don't get it, Toph," Aang turns on her. "You've lived your whole life in your safe little town in the mountains where the Fire Nation never came. You've never known loss like I have. You're just here because you wanted to get away from your parents. You think it's fun to steal from innocent people, to take their livelihoods like it's nothing. Just like him and his people!"

"Listen here, Twinkletoes!" Toph snaps. "I'm here to teach Zuko earthbending, Fire Lord spawn or not! You're here to teach him airbending, not to accuse him of things he wasn't responsible for!"

"Why aren't you saying anything?"

It takes Zuko a moment to realize that this is directed at him. The smooth planes of Aang's face and lips are squared in barely contained fury. He's shaking with it, in fact. The paper flutters, rattling slightly in his grasp.

What can he say? It's true. Fire Lords Sozin and Azulon are responsible for the current state of the Air Nomads and Water Tribes. Uncle Iroh and Lu Ten participated in the Siege of Ba Sing Se. His own father continues to pour Fire Nation troops into the Earth Kingdom. Zuko's family is a curse on this world. Is it a stretch to say that he is as well?

"I can't believe you felt you couldn't tell me this. I thought you trusted me, Zuko, but you lied to me. I'm not even that angry about you being who you are, but more that you lied."

"You clearly are beyond angry," Toph points out. "If Zuko were anyone else's son, you wouldn't be reacting like this, would you? It's just because he's the Fire Lord's son."

"Fine, maybe that is it! Maybe you could have thought to yourself, gee, I should probably let Aang know that my ancestors killed his entire race!" Aang hisses. He casts the paper to the ground.

"If I had, do you think we would have still been friends?" Zuko asks, finally finding his voice. Aang turns his back and walks away towards the edge of the clearing, beyond the reach of the firelight. He picks up his glider from beside Appa, who blinks mulish eyes at him, awakened by their raised voices.

"At this point, I really don't know," Aang says in a voice devoid of all emotion. "Go live it up with Jet, for all I care. Maybe you'll learn something, being around someone who wants to kill all your people." He flicks his glider open.

"Aang, I'm sorry."

He still doesn't turn around. "I can't," he says.

 _Can't what? Forgive me for having the temerity to be born into a family of murderers?_ Zuko thinks darkly for a fleeting moment.

"I can't be around you right now." Aang says. "I… I need to be alone for a bit, at least." With that, he takes off towards the sky, spiraling in circles until he disappears between the branches.

"Sometimes I wonder who's really blind here," Toph says. "I can't believe him."

Zuko stares up at the forest canopy. It's probably too much to hope that Aang will have a change of heart and come back tonight. He sits down by the fire and picks up the discarded poster. Should have burned it when he had the chance. He feeds it into the fire now, watching the charred edges obliterate every word of his damning story. Last to go is his picture, the flames swallowing both sides of his face until he is no more.

He sits with Toph in silence for an immeasurable span of breaths afterwards. The tree houses above them are quiet too; no one seems to have witnessed the confrontation. If they'd heard Aang telling the truth of his heritage, he would probably have been shot down on the spot. Or maybe they're planning an ambush for him later—something else to look forward to, as if the situation could get any worse.

Toph stirs, the flames reflected in her sea-foam eyes. "Do you really have a scar?" she asks.

Of course, she wouldn't have known. "Yes, over my left eye. It was something of a parting gift from my father, before I was banished. I refused to fight him in a fire duel, so he burned my face."

"You never told Aang that, did you?"

"Wouldn't have made a difference. He's got a right to be angry. I lied to him, by omission. I lied to you, too." Zuko rests his forehead on his drawn-up knees. He wishes he could just erase this whole day.

Toph spits into the fire. "Do you hear me complaining? If I had the Fire Lord for a father, I wouldn't want anyone to know about him either. Well, you _met_ my father; he was just… ugh. He never loved me, the real me."

"No, neither did mine."

"My point is, Aang doesn't have a right to _stay_ mad. Sure, your father's a murderous, evil bastard. Does that make you a murderer too? No. By learning the elements and becoming the Avatar, you're trying to be better than him."

"Not a tall order," Zuko says drily.

"Why didn't you defend yourself, Zuko?"

He doesn't answer. There's a small patch of sky full of stars above the clearing. They're faint, but Zuko looks for their ancient, cold light anyways.

 _Stars are placed in the sky to commemorate our loved ones who have passed on_ , his mother said after Lu Ten's death. She was wrong, though. There weren't any new stars after Lu Ten died, after Mom was gone. Zuko checked. They went utterly unmarked by the heavens. The skies should be full of the stars representing every Air Nomad killed by the Fire Nation, Aang's childhood hung from the celestial temple. His father's crimes, his inherited guilt, on display for all the nations to see, to guide the rest of the world in depravity.

God, it's hopeless.

"Zuko?"

"Just leave it, Toph. He'll see sense and come back, or he won't."

"No, I… I was just wondering if I could maybe… touch your scar?"

Zuko tenses. "Why?" It comes out sharper than he intends. No one has ever touched his scar, aside from the nurses while he was healing.

"I don't know what it looks like. I didn't even know you had one."

"Well, you don't know what anything or anyone really looks like, do you?" he says without thinking.

"Oh, forget it!" She storms back into her earth tent and seals the opening, effectively slamming the door with pique.

 _Why am I so bad at being good?_ He sighs and approaches hesitantly. Toph's liable to send him flying if she thinks he's there to condescend to her.

"Toph, I shouldn't have said that. If you want, you can touch my whole face. It would come in handy, if we ever got separated and you needed to ask around for me. Would be a bit difficult if you couldn't describe me."

The door comes down, and Toph pokes her head out. "Really? You're okay with that?"

"Mmhm."

"Well then, get your face down here, I'm not six feet tall."

Zuko kneels awkwardly in front of her, wondering if this is the worst decision he's made recently. There are a lot of contenders, to be fair. He hopes that at least no one's watching. This would be kind of hard to explain to Jet…not that he cares for Jet's opinion of him in particular, let's not be mistaken here.

"Close your eyes," Toph says, so he does. She reaches up and rests her palm lightly beneath his left eye, tracing the edge of his scar with one finger. She follows its ridges backwards, towards the ring of toughened scar tissue directly around his eye. Her left hand comes up to mirror its pair on the other side of his face.

"No eyebrow?" Her fingers pause atop the bare ridge above his left eye.

"Burned off. It's been months, I don't think it'll grow back."

"So can you see out of this eye at all?"

"Yes. It's hard to open wide, though. For a week afterwards, I couldn't see clearly at all. And I couldn't see like you do back then, so I kept bumping into things."

Toph's fingers wander back, towards his crumpled left ear. "Touch my face," she says. "You'll feel less weird."

 _How is that supposed to make this_ less _weird?_ He reaches tentatively in her direction. "Here." She grabs his hand and places it on the curve of her jaw.

Strangely, it's equal parts weird and pleasant, just sitting there holding each other's faces. There is no sound except the crackling of the fire and the chirp of cicadas in the forest. Toph's fingers are surprisingly callused for someone of the upper class.

"You're very warm," she remarks, tracing his upper lip.

"Firebender," which isn't the real reason, but then he accidentally catches her finger between his lips as he speaks. He jerks back in surprise.

"No, that's not it. You're flushing," she realizes. "A lot… you're really not enjoying this, are you?"

"I… no, it's just, that, Jet might, I mean—" Zuko fumbles with his words, embarrassed to be caught out.

"…oh. I see," Toph says dully. "Wouldn't want your boyfriend upstairs to find out. Right. I'll stop now." Her hands drop to the ground. Zuko's remains on her face, a slender connection over the gulf between them. "I shouldn't have… well, good night." She retreats back into her tent, blocking him out.

Zuko stares at his hand, still outstretched before him. Yep, that definitely ranked in his top five worst decisions, ever.

* * *

 **A/N:** Fun fact: the decent firebender Jet met long ago, "a better man than most", was Lu Ten. See chapter 3 of _brave enough to die_ for more details.

Notes on Aang and Toph's reactions in this chapter: archiveofourown dot org/works/7019827/chapters/19604476


	9. Never Forget Who You Are

**A/N:** Content warnings for this chapter (because always better safe than sorry): 1) Animal death (not a furry, adorable one, but all the same). 2) Implied (non-explicit!) sexual activities between two minors, by modern age standards, anyways. I hope it's not too weird or cliche; I haven't written anything this... heated for like, 2 years... omg.

* * *

 **TOPH**

"So, remind me what we're doing on this mission again?" Toph says, sighing and scratching one foot with the opposite toe. She's not sure how she got roped into going on a mission with Jet, Pipsqueak, and Smellerbee. But if it keeps her from having to talk to Zuko, who's back at the hideout helping with something or other, she's all for it.

"Just some routine reconnaissance." Jet hooks his swords onto the lowest branch of a huge tree and swings himself up. Toph stays on the ground by the base of the tree. She feels its huge roots spreading through the ground underfoot, extending for yards unseen in every direction. Pipsqueak and Smellerbee (seriously, who let these kids name themselves?) are ahead of them, hiding a little off of the main path but close enough to ambush any approaching hostiles.

"We don't want any travelers to discover our hideout," Jet explains further. "Your abilities are perfect for this. You'll be able to sense anyone coming from fifty yards away."

"Make that a hundred," Toph corrects him. "Greatest earthbender in the world, remember?"

"No kidding. It would be wrong of me to forget how you easily took out all those soldiers yesterday. I'd say that out of all of us, you have the best chance of single-handedly defeating all the Fire Nation soldiers in this valley."

 _Well, he sure knows how to make a girl feel good about herself._ Toph's noticed already; Jet takes great care to recognize every member of his merry band, no matter how inconsequential. Every compliment and shout-out he gives is completely sincere. Someone as down on himself as Zuko couldn't fail to fall for him.

Question is: could someone so single-mindedly anti-Fire Nation fall for Zuko? Not Lee, this earthbending pushover who doubts himself at every step, but the real Zuko, the Avatar who wants more than anything to make amends for his family's wrongdoings?

"I wondered, actually, how is it that you're a better earthbender than your older brother?"

Toph considers how to answer this. It's surprisingly difficult to lie convincingly, which says a lot for Zuko's nerves when he successfully lied to her.

"There hasn't been an earthbender in my family for generations, as far as I know." That much is true, even if her family isn't the same as Zuko's. "We didn't know that we could, so no one ever taught us. I only found out because I ran away from home when I was six, and I met some badgermoles in the mountains. They're the original earthbenders, and I learned from them. Eventually I taught Lee. He's still learning, though."

"That's amazing, Toph. You're clearly a great teacher."

"I like to think so too."

A birdcall sounds from ahead; Jet returns it briefly. Just then, she feels a different pattern of vibration in the earth up ahead, approaching Pipsqueak and Smellerbee's hiding place.

"Someone's coming!"

"Can you tell how many?"

"Just one."

Jet signals to the others. There's something else, though. The traveler's steps alternate, heavy then light, heavy then light, with excess weight shifted to one side… using a cane? "Wait, it's just an old man, a cripple. Call them off!"

But Jet is already swinging down from the branch as the traveler nears their tree. He leaps down in front of the man, causing him to stumble backwards in alarm. "What are you doing in our woods, old man? You've no right to be here."

The man quakes where he stands, leaning heavily on his cane. "Please, sir, I'm just an actor; I'm traveling to Gaipan for their production of—"

"Liar!" Jet advances on the old man, the metallic _shing_ of his swords menacing in the quiet of the forest. "No one passes this way except spies and enemies."

The old man retreats slowly under Jet's advance, while the others descend from their hiding places and surround him. He yelps in surprise as he bumps into Pipsqueak from behind and tumbles to the ground.

"No, no, you're mistaken. I mean you no harm. Please, have mercy!"

"Does the Fire Nation have mercy?" Jet's voice is wild, completely out of control, tinged with the madness of an avenging angel, or perhaps a self-righteous demon. It's in his vicious stance and the upward swing of his right arm—

 _No._ Toph throws out a hand and knocks his sword away. He turns to her in shock. "What—"

"He's telling the truth," she says firmly. "He's an actor going about his own business, and he's got no intentions of hurting you. Let him go!"

"It doesn't matter. He's Fire Nation, and they're all the same: heartless vermin that love nothing better than to see the other nations burn." Jet turns back to Pipsqueak and Smellerbee. "Search him!"

"Jet, this isn't right!" Toph exclaims, as they grab the cowering man's possessions.

"Maybe it's less clear to you because you're younger, Toph, but we Freedom Fighters take this very seriously. The Fire Nation needs to be extinguished, wherever we encounter them. Remember why you fight! Remember what happened to your mother!"

"…what?" _Nothing's happened to my mother._

"Lee told me about the Fire Nation killing your mother, and your cousin. At least he hasn't forgotten!"

 _Oh, right. We'd better get our stories straight if we're going to be here much longer. Though something tells me we probably shouldn't stay._

Jet picks up his swords. "Come on, let's go! Leave the Fire Nation scum."

The others go on ahead, back towards the hideout. The old man remains on the ground, whimpering in fear.

"I'm sorry," Toph says miserably. _Guess that answers my question. It was pretty rhetorical, anyways. Zuko won't be happy about this._

TTT

Toph passes the rest of the day in a brooding fug. It's almost sundown before Zuko returns to camp, his footsteps light and chipper, for once. He'll give Twinkletoes a run for his money at this rate.

"Is Aang back yet?" Zuko asks.

 _Oh hello Toph, how was your day? Horrible, Zuko, but thanks for asking._ Out loud, she says, "No, he's still off doing whatever he's doing."

"It's not usual of him to stew over something for so long. Do you think something's happened to him?"

 _It's not usual of him to have something so big to stew over._ "Twinkletoes can defend himself. He's probably just practicing 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'. Though personally, it just makes me want to punch him more." She gets up and walks past him. "Look, I need to talk to you about something."

Zuko follows, a little warily, she thinks. "What?"

"It's Jet. He's a psychopath! He attacked a helpless old man in the woods today. He wasn't even trying to hurt us, he was just minding his own business!"

"What?" Zuko asks disbelievingly. "Jet wouldn't do that."

" _I was there,_ " Toph reminds him. "He hates Fire Nation people even if they're innocent civilians who couldn't possibly do any harm. And that includes you." She crosses her arms and points her face in Zuko's direction, as if she's actually looking at him. Her parents always tried to get her to do this; apparently this tactic lends the appearance of sincerity, and she's going to need as much as she can to convince Zuko. "We should leave as soon as possible."

"Well, he doesn't know that I'm… and besides, that's irrelevant. I want to talk to Jet about this first. It doesn't add up."

 _Trust Zuko to be most fair-minded towards the one who least deserves it,_ Toph laments.

* * *

 **ZUKO**

They find Jet by the river, directing the Freedom Fighters. "Pipsqueak, move those barrels over where they need to be, but be careful. Smellerbee, would you get the message to Longshot?"

He hears them approaching and gives Zuko a warm smile. "Lee. I wondered when I'd be seeing you today."

"Hey, Jet. Are we interrupting anything important?"

"No, just business as usual. What's up?"

Zuko, unsure how to start this conversation, doesn't say anything at first. He doesn't want to sound accusatory, even if Toph definitely did. Her dour face seems to tell Jet what he needs to know, though.

"Is this about the man in the woods?"

Zuko nods.

"Toph, there's something you missed when we were searching him." He holds up a wickedly sharp dagger. "He was carrying this: a concealed weapon."

Toph frowns. "So what? Most people carry weapons in these parts, especially non-benders. It's not safe otherwise. And he wasn't going to use it. He said he meant you no harm, and he wasn't lying. I could feel it," she insists.

"You could have been wrong."

"I'm never wrong about these things! Lee, have I _ever_ been wrong about someone lying to me?"

Zuko realizes that in fact, she has. She wasn't able to detect the time he lied to her about the Fire Nation poster, but that's not really something to bring up in present company. "There's always a first time."

"I don't believe it," she mutters. "Are you really going to take his word over mine?"

"That's not all." Jet wades a few strides into the river and reaches into the shallow reeds, searching around for something. After a few moments, he pulls out a small frog, which croaks balefully at being so mishandled. With his other hand, he unscrews the pommel of the blade to reveal a small vial of clear liquid, which he pours over the frog. It starts to spasm within seconds, its long legs jerking uncontrollably, huge eyes bulging out until, with a pathetic croak, it lies immobile and lifeless—all in less than two minutes.

"He was a Fire Nation assassin sent to kill me. People don't normally carry lethal poisons around, let alone in a dagger with a spring-loaded deploying mechanism." Jet drops the dead frog back into the water. "You saved my life, Toph. If that poison had gotten into my bloodstream, I'd be dead by now."

Zuko stares at the ripples of water that emanate from the frog's watery grave. _It's true. He could have been killed._

"I still don't think that makes sense." Toph stands her ground. "Why wouldn't they have sent someone younger who could defend themselves and have a chance at actually killing you?"

"The element of surprise, of course. They expected us to let him pass unsuspected, but we were smarter than that."

"Hm. Have it your way," Toph says in a voice that declares her lack of conviction. She walks off back towards the forest.

"Toph," Zuko starts halfheartedly, but she ignores him and continues walking, disappearing among the trees. Jet looks at Zuko questioningly.

"She's… just a bit stubborn. She'll come around," Zuko says, trying not to feel terribly guilty about writing Toph off as such. It's not wrong to be careful, in general, but with Jet… surely there's no need. He knows best when it comes to these matters.

"It's all right. It's better if she comes to believe me on her own terms. Forcing a matter never ends well." He slings an arm around Zuko's neck, pressing their shoulders together. "Let's go get some dinner. It's been a long day."

"Yeah, it has."

"I heard from Sneers and the Duke that you really helped them improve our perimeter fortifications. I'd been worried about that for a while…"

As they walk, Zuko lets his mind wander in Jet's words and praise, his voice like silk, like a warm hearth fire, breathtaking but comforting, trailing away into a promising whisper.

ZZZ

Later that night, they sit together high in the trees. Zuko rests more fully against the tree behind him and leans his head back, listening for laughter that isn't there, watching for a flash of yellow among the deep reds and browns of the autumn forest. It's almost winter, he realizes. The days are getting shorter; the night air is cool on their skin. He wonders where Aang could be, roaming the forest by himself, without even Appa to keep him company.

"Oh, I nearly forgot," Jet says. "The assassin we ambushed today said he was an actor. He even came prepared with props. We took this from him." He hands Zuko a theater mask featuring a grotesquely smiling blue face with bulbous eye sockets. "I don't know if it means anything to you, but if you like it, keep it."

He takes it with a stab of nostalgia. "Thanks, Jet." Yet another slice of his old life has found him. This is the mask of the Dark Water Spirit from _Love Amongst the Dragons_ , the very character he would always play against Azula's Dragon Emperor in their reenactments.

Azula. He hasn't thought about her in a while, but he supposes she doesn't need his thoughts. She may not be the Avatar, but she doesn't need to be. With Zuko gone, the path is clear for her to succeed their father, like he'd always wanted. He wouldn't be surprised if in a few years, she ends up leading a second, successful siege against Ba Sing Se and the Earth Kingdom.

Ideally, that's what he's trying to stop, by learning to be the Avatar. But then what? Is he just supposed to storm the Fire Lord's palace and challenge his father to another Agni Kai, but with three extra elements? Even with the help of Toph and Aang (if he ever forgives Zuko), what could the three of them do against the entire Fire Nation army? It's just the same as what Jet is doing, harassing the soldiers out here, a few fire ants nipping at their heels, not realizing how close they are to being crushed any moment. It's bravery, but it's also idealism and futility.

Not to mention the fact that he needs to learn waterbending as well. In spite of being able to do it when fused with Senlin, Zuko has tried in the intervening weeks and failed. He has no idea where to find a master, either; at this point, they're closest to the North Pole, but both Water Tribes have been as soundly defeated as the Dark Water Spirit that fictionally represents them. The Southern Raiders eliminated the last waterbenders in the South Pole six years ago. The downfall of the North Pole began almost fifty years prior with the death of Avatar Kuruk and the conquest of Admiral Zhao, Commander Zhao's father. He wonders if the commander went back to the Fire Nation after Zuko's presumed drowning to continue training Azula.

"What are you thinking about?" Jet breaks in on his thoughts.

"A—", _wait, no, Toph's my "sister" right now,_ "uh, Aang, actually. Just thinking about why he's not back yet. I wonder if Toph and I should go look for him."

"Why did he leave?" Jet sounds a little disapproving.

 _The realization that I'm his worst enemy, and yours too, in fact._ "It's a long story."

"Fair enough."

"He saved me from drowning, when we first met," Zuko says, not knowing why he feels the need to defend Aang to Jet. "We've been close friends since then."

"Close friends. I see." There's a smile in Jet's voice.

"…not that kind of friends," Zuko hurries to qualify, insincerity lacing his tongue even as he says it. They _aren't,_ after all, he and Aang, at least not the way they've left things.

"I don't judge," Jet says. He shifts so that he's on his knees facing Zuko, hovering slightly over him. "In fact, I'm counting on it."

The lines of Jet's body are long and straight as he crowds Zuko in against the tree. The world is reduced to swathes of red and blue and the lovely tawny walnut of his skin. His arms on either side of Zuko's head are as unyielding as his swords.

"Jet, what…what are you doing?" Zuko questions, a little needlessly, tilting his head up to meet the other's eyes.

"Tell me you're not leaving me yet, Lee. I've been meaning to give you and Toph a really important mission, something I can't entrust to anyone else," Jet whispers, so close to Zuko that he can see the creases of his lips, feel the warmth of his body. "It could mean the difference between winning our battle against the Fire Nation or losing our home forever."

"I'm listening." It's hard to concentrate on anything but those dark eyes, half-lidded with calculated allure as they study Zuko.

"Or I could sway you some other way. I've been told I'm very convincing." He looks meaningfully at Zuko's lips.

"Convince me, then," Zuko breathes. He can feel his own pulse in his throat, in his hands, at his temples, like his heart is trying to spill itself out of his body. He thinks he understands now, what Lu Ten meant all those years ago, about the scarcity of love.

"Oh, I will." Jet closes the distance between their lips.

The kiss is like Jet himself, a testament to swift and relentless conquest. His lips are hard and inexorable, pushing Zuko's open under them. Jet's slight weight settles onto his lap; strong thighs squeeze on either side of Zuko's, keeping him immobile. One hand rests on his jaw, thumb brushing feather-light back and forth. Another hand comes between him and the tree, and he can feel the press of a steel forearm bracer on the back of his head. Tentatively, he places one hand in Jet's hair and one at his waist, anchoring himself in the other, bringing the two of them still closer. He is completely surrounded by Jet, as surely as if he were standing in a raging forest fire, and the entire world were crumbling at his feet.

At last, they separate, hands and eyes lingering, loathe to be parted. "How did I do?"

"Not too bad," Zuko says casually, if a little breathlessly. "You've convinced me to stay another day at least. I might need a refresher from time to time, though."

"Glad to accommodate you," Jet says, leaning in for another kiss.

This time it's slower, less hurried, less like burning up and more like the uncertain flicker of a dying candle, drowning in itself. His lips against Jet's are as water, yielding and molding themselves to the unfamiliar shape. Jet rests his forehead against Zuko's when they stop to breathe again, regarding the other with almost shy eyes. In those few stolen, sacred moments, they both forget the world beyond the two of them.

* * *

 **JET**

Close to dawn, Jet slips out from under the covers and adjusts them around Lee's body. He sleeps on his side, curled in on himself protectively. Even subconsciously, he seems too withdrawn to give and receive affection. Jet rests a hand on his shoulder, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breath. He hopes Lee will understand. It's for people like Lee, who have been hurt so badly they might never recover, that Jet fights. He doesn't count himself among these people, because he needs to be stronger, needs to kill before the Fire Nation kills first.

He stoops out of the low door of the hut and crosses several trees, traveling towards the river until he's far enough from where Toph sleeps to avoid detection. He descends to the forest floor silently, meeting Smellerbee, Longshot, Pipsqueak, and the Duke. They're all ready to do what needs doing.

His own village was destroyed in an inferno, but no one fights fire with fire. No, Gaipan and its Fire Nation rot will be cleansed with the flood of the ages.

* * *

 **ZUKO**

"I've had intel that the Fire Nation troops are planning on burning down the forest," Jet tells them as they follow him down the riverbank. "We can't let them destroy our home."

 _Again_ , Zuko senses tacked onto the end.

"We're all keeping our guard up to defend the forest at a moment's notice, but in the meantime, we need to prepare for every outcome. Having enough water nearby to counteract their attack is crucial, but the river isn't as full now as it was in the spring after the snow melts."

"So how can we help?" Zuko wonders. Beside him, Toph lets out a tiny sigh of discontent. "You'd need a legion of waterbenders to raise the level of the river." _And I'm not going to be much help in that regard._

"Turns out we won't." Jet pauses by the river's widest stretch, within sight of the dam, and points at the ground. "There are hot geysers trapped beneath the surface, and they've got plenty of groundwater deep down to swell the river."

"He's right. I feel hollows under the earth where there's water instead," Toph chimes in before remembering that she's decidedly not in favor of being on this mission.

"So we just need to move the earth so that the water can escape."

"Exactly," Jet says. "But you'll have to work carefully. If you fling off all the earth on top, you'd get a huge geyser spewing everywhere, not just into the river. You'd lose a lot of water seeping back into the ground; plus, I wouldn't want you to get scalded." He directs that bit mainly at Zuko, which Toph can't fail to notice.

"Right." Zuko closes his eyes, concentrates on seismically sensing the earth beneath them. Sure enough, there are huge pockets of hollow ground, housing vats of boiling water. He thinks of his still relatively coarse earthbending. "I'm not sure, Jet. I might just make things worse. I know Toph can do it, but—"

"Oh no, you're not leaving me to open all these geysers by myself."

"You can do it," Jet encourages. "I believe in you, Lee."

 _You believe in what little of me you know,_ Zuko laments. But Jet looks so earnest, his hands strong on Zuko's shoulders, his head bent ever so slightly to keep his gaze, his _eyes—_

"Meet me back at the hideout?" There's a low undercurrent of passion in Jet's innocent question, enough to turn the corners of Zuko's mouth up in response. He tries to calm his ratcheting heartbeat, knowing that Toph won't appreciate the reasons for it, but it's no use.

"Okay, let's get started then," Toph interrupts brashly, already moving into position to sense the geysers underneath.

ZZZ

They work in silence for a while, each unwilling to mention the elephant koi in the room. It's so much easier to pretend that everything's all right, that Aang isn't indefinitely AWOL, that Zuko's not a little too enamored with Jet for his own good, that Toph doesn't privately believe they're better off leaving this all behind (and not just for selfish reasons). That their own friendship is as shaky as the ground they stand on, dotted with hot water vents.

"Careful Toph, the ground's really hot," he can't stop himself from saying as she ventures uncomfortably close to one of the newly opened vents. "Your feet—"

"Oh believe me, I know what it's like to get burned."

"Toph…"

"Zuko, it's fine." Her shoulders sag briefly, like crumbling rock. She loosens the earth around another hot vent, and Zuko joins her to carefully free the water beneath.

"It's not fine," he maintains. "I… I didn't know how you felt about me. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have been so…" He quickly discards 'blind', settles for, "thoughtless."

"The problem with you, Zuko, is not that you're thoughtless, but that you're too thoughtful. You're always thinking, not doing. And when you're thinking, it's always something along the lines of, 'I shouldn't; I'm wrong; I can't do this.' Well, you can! You're the goddamn Avatar, so act like it. If you can't do something, chances are, no one else can."

"But I can't just go around doing whatever—I, I have duties to fulfill," he protests. "I have to help people, as the Avatar. That's why we're here, doing this," he gestures at the now-steaming ground. "For Jet, for the Freedom Fighters."

"For people who hate you? The real you?"

"It doesn't matter how he feels about me."

"So this is gonna be your Avatar style? Avoid the problem, dodge all attacks? You're more of an airbender than I thought."

"What would you have me do, Toph?" he demands. "Go around introducing myself as Avatar Zuko, the Fire Lord's son, who can burn your house down but you'd better still invite him in for dinner and trust that he won't?"

"It's preferable to the alternative. Look at how much you managed to accomplish at Meikuang when you merged with the tree spirit."

"That was only because of the Avatar state."

"The what?"

"It's called the Avatar state; when I fused with Senlin and augmented my bending. Only the fully-realized Avatar can control it, though." He's starting to remember Shyu and the Fire Sage's words to him at Crescent Island so many years ago. He could almost tear his hair out at the irony of it all. "It gives me the power to save many lives, or extinguish them."

"Well then, you've got to trust yourself to save them and not extinguish them. It's as simple as that," Toph declares.

They loosen the earth enough to send up a stream of water that shoots into the river urgently. Zuko watches it flow away until the fount is exhausted, and with it disperses the heat in his voice. Toph's not wrong. She rarely is.

"I grew up thinking I was never going to amount to much, you know. My father hated me because I had no talent at firebending."

"So times change, how shocking: yes, I _get_ that," Toph says impatiently.

"So you're right. It's hard, but I've got to change my ways too. I can't keep hiding in the shadows. I'm the Avatar, and I can prove my loyalty to those that need my help, even if they don't want it at first. I owe it to them to at least tell them."

"Don't get me wrong, Zuko. It's great that you want to help. I just don't think this is the healthiest place for you to be. I know how you feel about everything the Fire Nation's done, and Jet just feeds that. You don't need to add your own name to the list of people who hate you for the wrong reasons."

He hadn't realized how much thought Toph had put into Zuko's well-being, or how strongly she felt about it. It's…gratifying that someone at least cares about him as a person. "Thanks, Toph."

She nods. "Once these Freedom Fighters are all watered up, let's go find Aang, like you said. Get our little gang back together, just like old times."

"Do you think he'll be able to forgive me, though?"

"Only one way to find out." She punches him idly, almost as an afterthought.

"Ow, what was that for?"

"That's how I show affection." Toph beams.

ZZZ

"I should tell Jet that I've got to move on, though," Zuko says pensively, watching the last geyser spout its water out into the river. They've finished with time to spare; the sun is still only halfway to the horizon.

"Oh, boy," Toph bemoans. "Well, let's get it over with."

As they make their way up to the high ground near the forest hideout, Zuko glances behind them and down the river. The dam is about half a mile away, and he squints as he makes out two figures standing on it, heaving several large barrels onto its surface.

"What?" Toph asks, sensing that he's stopped.

"That's weird. It's Sneers and Pipsqueak, they're on the dam. They've got a bunch of barrels that look like the blasting jelly we confiscated from the soldiers. But that doesn't make sense…"

Toph freezes. "Blasting jelly?"

They both comprehend within seconds of each other: the dam, the river, the town downstream, fireworks in the sky fading to flowers drifting away towards the sea.

"How could he…?" Zuko can barely make the words pass his throat. Jet _can't…_

"Let's think less on how _he_ could and how _we_ can stop him," Toph cuts past him.

"Let's split up," Zuko says, thinking hard. "Toph, you can move faster over ground. You've got to warn the townspeople. I'm going to find Jet and try to get him to call it off."

"On it!" Toph speeds away in an urgent cloud of dust.

 _Why would he do that?_ wars with _Are you really surprised?_ in Zuko's mind as he sets off running towards the hideout.

"Lee? What's wrong?"

Jet looks at him in confusion, but Zuko wonders how much of that is sincere. "Jet—the dam! You've got to call it off, Jet, this isn't right!" he manages to choke out while catching his breath.

He looks at Zuko for a long moment and shakes his head. "I can't do that."

"Jet, please! There are innocent civilians down in that village. Is this what you meant by 'anything that gives us an advantage'? Tricking us into using our earthbending to help you drown them all?"

"I thought you would understand the sacrifices we have to make in war. You've lost so much to the Fire Nation, Lee: your home, your loved ones, your own self-worth." Jet draws closer, stops within arm's length and reaches out to touch Zuko's scarred face. "These things we've lost, we can't win back. The closest we can get is by paying back what they've taken from us: _everything."_

Zuko resists the urge to lean into his touch and pulls away. He hears it now, the undercurrent of obsession and dissociation in Jet's voice, like a stain of blackest ink in clear water, spreading and pervading ruthlessly. He can't sway the Freedom Fighter; Jet's too far lost in his constructed reality where killing innocent people alongside soldiers is perfectly fine. He's got to get back to the dam, hold the flood back or at least divert it somehow—

"You're not going anywhere," Jet says, and the bite of one hook sword around his ankle is all the warning Zuko receives before he's flung through the air to collide heavily against a tree. "I can't let you interfere."

 _Spirits, he's strong._ Zuko blinks himself back to clarity, but Jet is already on him. He throws himself out of the way, and Jet gives chase. Zuko looks for an opening to throw him off, but he's too agile. Every rock or dust clod sent his way misses by a hair's breadth, his reflexes quick as the strike of a viper. He vaults easily over the wall Zuko puts up hastily, leveraging his own weight to build momentum as his hook swords swing him over, up, and down in front of Zuko.

"I had high hopes for you, Lee," he says, a grim mirth tracing his lips. "I'm not giving up on you." He advances slowly, swords at the ready.

"What happened to 'not forcing the matter?'" Zuko retorts, retreating carefully. This isn't good. Every minute he delays is a minute closer to the town's destruction.

"I have no choice!" Jet snarls. He lashes out with his swords, forcing Zuko to leap up into the trees to evade him.

"You do have a choice!" Jet has the advantage on him up here and cuts him off before he can get farther. "You can fight off the soldiers but leave the village alone!"

"What do you think we've been doing for years? It's no use; more keep coming. The only way to drive them out for good is to remove anything they can oppress or destroy."

He's unsalvageable. Up and down the trees they scramble, and if the situation weren't so dire, Zuko would laugh at how they're like squirrels at play. This game is much deadlier, though.

"Just give up," Jet hisses when he finally has Zuko cornered against two trees, their trunks knotted together to form a broad wall. "Who do you think you are, trying to defend those firebenders? You're no better than any one of them, Lee."

One hook curls behind his neck; the other presses into his chest, his back to the tree, and it's reminiscent of the intimacy they shared just last night, the warmth of their bodies now replaced by the chill of merciless steel. Zuko breathes in, feels the blade press harder against his heart with the movement, and finally, any admiration he might still have felt for Jet is conducted out and away from him.

"How fortunate, then, that I _am_ one of them."

The bark of the tree beneath his hands starts to smolder, and Jet gapes in shock at the flames rising. His steel grip slackens, and Zuko twists away and hits the ground. Jet's a top-heavy fighter, always striking for the head, so he fails to anticipate the way Zuko sweeps his legs out from under him, followed by a whirlpool of flame that knocks him back onto his elbows. Zuko stands, fire at his back and in his eyes. Jet looks up at him, dumbfounded, but then his eyes narrow in spite and anger.

"Who are you, then?" he asks quietly, at odds with the enormity of the revelation.

"My name is Zuko, son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. I'm the Avatar."

Suddenly, the soft twitter of a bird call floats over to them. Not a bird call; Zuko listens to the timbre. It's a signal. Jet returns the call, and with dread, Zuko realizes what it means.

They both turn towards the river. A moment later, the dam explodes in crimson accolade, and the river rushes forth, life-giving water bringing only death. The fire around Zuko sinks with his spirits into ash.

"It's too late." Jet echoes his thoughts as he pulls himself to his feet, swords lax at his sides. "Avatar Zuko." His lips mock the title. "Toph's not your sister, then. Is there anything real about you? Did you actually have a cousin who died in the war? Oh, you did, but on the opposite side—for shame!"

"He was a better man than you by far."

"At least give me some credit. We won a great victory against the Fire Nation today."

"No, you didn't." Suddenly, a circumference of earth leaps up and ensnares Jet's body, up to his neck, his swords falling useless to the ground.

"Toph!" Zuko's never been happier to see her.

She scuffs the dirt off her feet and smiles wanly. "I got to the village first and warned them."

Jet twists in his confines to stare wild-eyed at her. "No!"

"Yep. The villagers didn't believe me at first, but the old man that Jet attacked was there, and he vouched for me. Everyone was safely evacuated before the dam broke."

"Toph, you idiot! I can't believe it—you've ruined everything!"

"Put a lid on it, buddy. I've heard enough from you." Toph casually yanks the cone of earth up to cover Jet's mouth, effectively silencing him.

"You ruined yourself, Jet," Zuko says with finality. "You had good intentions, but you let your desire for revenge control you instead of the other way around." Toph takes his hand, giving him a reassuring squeeze.

"Maybe one day you'll change, but not today. Goodbye, Jet." He lets Toph guide him away, leaving the Freedom Fighter trapped in the clutches of the earth, glaring furiously after them.

* * *

 **A/N:** Poor Jet. Well, he'll come around one day, but not within the scope of this story :(

Chapter notes can be found at archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/19737661


	10. The Blue Spirit

**AANG**

 _Two days earlier…_

The moonless sky bears down on him as he skims the treetops, his glider leaving no shadow on the sleeping forest below. He doesn't know where he's going, and he doesn't care.

 _Classic airbending technique,_ a voice in his head taunts. It sounds suspiciously like Toph's. _Running away when things get rough, that's real admirable of you._

He ignores head-Toph, irritated that her chatter follows him even here. He's forcefully banished himself from the only people he knows on this side of the world, but his thoughts won't leave him alone.

 _"I was banished from the Fire Nation for offending a member of the royal family."_ Aang supposes Zuko was technically telling the truth while sidestepping the fact that he himself was a part of that family. Not anymore, though. He remembers snatches of stories Zuko told him about his life pre-banishment. Seems he's just exchanged his prodigious bratty firebending sister for an earthbending one.

 _Does that make me the older cousin, the battle-weary saint who could do no wrong?_ Aang thinks wearily. _Well, sign me up for the next war._

His arms are starting to ache; flying is so much more tiring without Appa. The sky is greying—he's been gone six, maybe eight hours. He wonders if Zuko is worried.

But of course, he is. Blood doesn't bind them, but they're as good as family. For so long, Aang's had no one besides his mother and Appa, that the notion of an outsider becoming as blood to him is… inconceivable. What about Zuko, though? Can one's family in name fail to form any chains of attachment or emotional bonds? Zuko's father, at least, seems to be an exemplar in this regard.

Aang's had sixteen years to get used to the fact that he has next to no one on this earth. Zuko was still struggling to come to terms with his own abandonment when they met. Small wonder he wouldn't want to immediately alienate his savior and new friend by telling him about his genocidal forefathers.

 _"If I had, do you think we would have still been friends?"_

He notices a break in the forest, an area of some several acres liberally crossed by slender, clear streams at the foot of an upcoming mountain. May as well land and take a break. He'll ponder what to do next, though it's just a question of when to return to his friends. He can't keep running away.

Aang frowns at his reflection in the shallow creek. He gets the sense that someone's watching him, but looking around—nothing. Paranoia induced by lack of sleep? It's possible. He scrubs his face in the cold water to wake himself up a bit.

Maybe it was for the best, that Zuko didn't tell him outright. He's not sure he could have seen past it initially, and perhaps their relationship would never have blossomed into what it is now.

What is their relationship precisely, though? Aang would venture to say it exceeds friendship and brotherhood, but then again, he doesn't boast much experience with either. There's a kind of unbridled awareness that he feels whenever Zuko is nearby, a subconscious urge to always keep him in the periphery of his thoughts. He feels out of sorts now, so far away from Zuko, like he's… lost without him.

He supposes it began the night he found Zuko on the stormy sea, but not much has changed since then. All his life, it seems he's been searching for something without realizing it—a home in a person, in Zuko. And now he's lost it, like a fool.

 _I can find him again. I don't know how, but I didn't know how the first time around either. I'll just have to trust in the bond that connects us._

That chance never comes. He feels the arrow hurtling towards him before he hears or sees it. A twang of taut leather, the sound of a sharp blade slicing the air, and an about-face too late to dodge—all hope of regaining what he's lost is dashed.

* * *

 **ZUKO**

 _Present_

"So… how exactly are we supposed to find Aang?" Toph asks precisely two minutes after Appa clears the treetops, leaving the Freedom Fighters behind.

The problem of locating one (1) airbender in a forest of thousands (1000s) of trees has occurred to Zuko as well. "Well, he has his bison whistle with him, so he should be able to call Appa if he wants to."

" _If_ he wants to," Toph echoes.

Zuko sighs; he can hear what Toph's thinking. "Barring that, I suppose we'll have to hit up the nearest town, see if he's been by." They don't have much in terms of alternatives.

"So, we could be flying in completely the wrong direction and we'd never know it?"

"Well, something tells me that we'll have better luck finding an airbender by air. If it doesn't work out, we'll land and try the ground instead," Zuko says, trying to infuse the situation with some logic. "Besides, I have a feeling we're going the right way."

"Oh yeah? What's this feeling like?"

"I feel… a bit nauseous, actually," he admits.

"That's called motion sickness—welcome to the club," Toph rejoins waspishly, a gleeful spite in her words.

ZZZ

A few hours later, Toph is looking decidedly less gleeful and more in need of immediate medical attention, or at least a trash receptacle to vomit into.

"I don't understand; you've never had it this bad." Zuko tries not to sound so dispassionate, but Toph is really trying his patience. "Is it because we haven't flown for two whole days?"

"What does it matter? Just kill me please, O great Avatar," she implores. "I said you need to trust yourself to decide between saving lives and ending them, didn't I? Well, this is definitely one situation in which you need to end a life."

"It's not your time yet." He squints at the map, tuning out her dramatics. "You know how I know? You still have breath to spare giving me snark. Until that's gone, you're still for this world."

"It was worth a shot," she mutters, visibly trying to suppress a retch. "Please, Zuko. Everything's spinning out of control. If I weren't blind, I'd be blacked out right now from dizziness. I feel like I'm trying to give birth to a baby through my throat. Did you know it can take up to a day for some mothers to give birth? Not through their throats, though."

"Seventeen hours for me and my sister, my mom told me," Zuko says, mostly to stop her from delivering more gruesome images. "Anyways, don't worry, there's a city on the mountain coming up, and an herbalist who lives up top." Perhaps they'll be able to find respite for Toph there and possibly some insight into where Aang could be.

The city, named Taku on the map, turns out to be utterly abandoned, vines and shrubs growing wild over the faces of buildings and statues. The whole mountainside is covered in stone carvings and leafy foliage, devoid of any life. It's unnerving. They approach the top of the mountain, and here at least Zuko finds someone living, in a humble conservatory cluttered with plants. A withered old woman tends to a pure white cat as they land and hardly bats an eye at the huge flying bison on her front lawn and the scarred boy carrying a small blind girl reeling with nausea—she's seen stranger things in her long life.

"Excuse me? My friend needs some medicine, she's dying of—"

"Calm down, young man. She'll be fine." She doesn't even spare a glance for Toph, fussing with some orange blossoms on a potted plant. "I've lived up here for half my life—used to be others, but they all left years ago. Wounded Earth Kingdom troops still come by now and again, brave boys, and thanks to my remedies they always leave in better shape than when they arrive."

"Okay," Zuko interrupts, "but do you know what—"

"Patience!" she exclaims, brandishing a wooden spatula sternly at him. "You both have the rest of your lives to cure yourselves of whatever's wrong with you. Now let me finish Miyuki's dinner. Just set your lady friend down over on that table in the corner; she can't be too comfortable from all your chivalric jostling."

"Ground, please," Toph mumbles indistinctly as Zuko goes to put her down. _Right, so she can see._ "Should I be more worried that she's obviously senile, or that you didn't correct her when she called me your lady friend?"

"Worry about yourself, Toph."

The herbalist finishes feeding her cat and turns back to Zuko. "Where is your airbender?"

How…?

"Oh, don't look so surprised, boy. I've been around for a while." She picks a shriveled leaf from another plant and with some coaxing, puts it under Toph's tongue ("Eurgh!"). "You're traveling with a flying bison, so reason stands to suggest that you have an airbender since you're not one yourself."

Okay, so _not_ senile. "You're right, at least in part," he concedes. "I…I'm the Avatar. From the Fire Nation," he adds helpfully, though with her unusually canny powers of deduction, she probably already knows. It feels strange to just throw out this fact so casually. "We had an airbender, but we… lost him."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she demands. "Go and find him. I'll take care of her. Goodness knows you can't tell bay leaf from hollyhock, so make yourself useful elsewhere."

"Err…" She's not wrong, but Toph…

"Go," Toph echoes around a mouthful of leaves with mysterious properties. "Find your airbender, Zuko, I'll be fine."

He goes.

ZZZ

 _Okay. Time to find my airbender._ He tries not to think how on the mark that particularly possessive designation is.

He flies with Appa over the ruins of Taku. Aang once told him about the temples of the Air Nomads, cities in themselves, carved into the sides of cliffs and mountains, separated from everything else by stomach-dropping ravines and clear open skies. The Air Nomads metaphorically and literally detached themselves from the world.

Of course, these were second-hand tales told by Aang, heard from his mother but never witnessed in person. The temples must be forlorn and overrun by vegetation now, much like the abandoned city below him. Zuko thinks one day he would like to visit one of the air temples with Aang and walk in the footsteps of the culture that he lost to the Fire Nation's devastation. If Aang can find it in him to forgive Zuko, that is.

But first, he's got to locate his lost airbender.

Zuko leaves Appa to rest in an abandoned temple in the lower levels while he proceeds on foot down to the valley. Maybe some time alone will clear his mind and give him inspiration to find Aang. The dark is rising; he earthbends his way down the mountainside (Toph's harsh tutelage came in handy) without much hope of finding anything, honestly. Aang has two days' head start. If he doesn't want to be found, he won't be.

He stops by a creek to drink. Surprisingly, the water is freezing, compared to the river by Jet's hideout, which wasn't that far south. His fingers brush against something stony in the water, and he reaches in to withdraw—a frozen frog. How curious. He thinks to melt it and free it from the ice, but a thought stays the fire in his hand.

"Nature created this barrier between yourself and the world, so that you can protect yourself from the elements." Can it even hear him through its ice prison? "Even if my intentions are good, I shouldn't force you to unthaw. I have to let you come to me."

Surely he's not talking about the frog anymore.

He places it back into the creek bed. He still needs to find his friend, but the choice to open up to Zuko and reconcile? Well, that's up to Aang.

Zuko raises his eyes from the water, blinks at the opposite bank. There, amid a shower of red-fletched arrows, lies a staff that looks remarkably like—

 _Oh no._

He rushes to pick it up. Aang wouldn't leave his staff behind unless he was detained against his will. He must have been captured, and Zuko thinks he know by whom. The only military outpost in this area is Pohuai Stronghold; he recalls seeing it on the map.

 _Base of the legendary Yuyan archers, who can pin a fly to a tree a hundred yards away without killing it._ A memory resurfaces, of Azula's sing-song recitation to one of the court history tutors, years ago. And she always accused him of not paying attention to their lessons.

It's also the base of Colonel Shinu, Lu Ten's commanding officer, his own memory supplies, though this isn't particularly helpful. If they've got Aang, there's no way he can bust in to rescue him, not without resorting to the Avatar state. Even if Toph were in a position to help…earthbending in and out of the guarded fort is hardly subtle. They can't trigger an alarm. The Fire Nation is on alert for his face, but he'll do whatever it takes to gain an advantage.

Jet's words spark an idea in him. Azula always wanted to be the Dragon Emperor, and maybe she was right: she did make a better one than Zuko. Very well then. He will be the Dark Water Spirit, the scourge of the Fire Nation.

ZZZ

It proves easy enough to smuggle himself into Pohuai in the back of a supply wagon, and once inside, he sneaks between the shadows and the walls. He spares a moment to observe a mass gathering of troops in the main courtyard. Their attention is concentrated on the high tower above the courtyard, the place of honor. Perhaps Colonel Shinu is planning to address the men?

As it happens, it is not Shinu. Behind the mask, Zuko gasps as another figure enters the spotlight and begins to speak with a confident, smug voice. Its strident peal takes him back to that hellish week after his banishment, on the ship to Meikuang, under the command of Zhao.

 _What is he doing here?_

"We are the sons and daughters of fire, the superior element! This is the year Sozin's Comet returns to grant us its power! This is the year the Fire Nation breaks through the walls of Ba Sing Se and burns the city to the ground!" he crows. The crowd responds mechanically in its cheers, but he seems gratified, resuming: "Only one thing stands between us and victory: the Avatar. He is a traitor to the Fire Nation, a coward crawling in service to the other nations. I entreat you all to leave no stone unturned in helping me to find him and bring him down!"

Zhao's fiery speech redoubles Zuko's initiative to escape Pohuai with Aang. He won't be able to see the look on Zhao's face, but imagining the commander's defeat and shame once he realizes he's fouled up his plans again—that's enough to go on.

He enters the belly of the fortress, dodging through the empty halls, unsure as to where to search first. Aang must be held somewhere deep inside—Zhao cannot risk losing this feather in his cap, capturing the last airbender. He shrinks against the wall as he hears footsteps approaching the juncture up ahead and a monotone grumble accompanying them.

"Who does Zhao think he is, ordering court scribes around like his own personal courier service? Whose fault is it that he left important documents lying around in his quarters?" A sour-faced man wearing the ludicrous ruffled hat of the royal court scribes slouches past Zuko's hiding place. He creeps closer, noting the room that the scribe enters. The coast remains clear, but he's curious to see if he can finagle an opening now, while everyone else is at the mandatory pep rally.

Soon enough, the scribe returns the way he came, carrying several scrolls and still muttering about feeling ill-used. "Glowing testimonials from all the ranking officers present! I'm sure Shinu will be thrilled that I put words of support for you in his grudging mouth." He trudges off, and Zuko has to feel a little sorry for the man and his undesirable job.

Not sorry enough to resist a peek through the door he left ajar, though. On a whim, he ducks inside even as the fussy scribe turns the corner. Can he afford to waste time rifling through Zhao's personal belongings? Not really, but there's a chance he'll be able to garner something useful. Mission reports, battle schematics, news from the Fire Nation—anything. The room is spare and spartan in its furnishings, and even more so with regards to décor. Even so, Zuko spots his prize, ostentatiously mounted on the wall across from the door.

Bingo.

He takes them in hand reverently, nostalgically, and there they are: his dual swords reunited with his arms, whole once more. Their weight and length is just as he remembers them, comfortable, familiar, and ready to be tested. He reads this as a sign that his mission cannot fail.

ZZZ

Zuko follows a harried-looking guard down to the dungeons. The entire fortress seems deserted; everyone's outside listening to Zhao's blather, except for this one who clearly forgot he was due to relieve the previous shift. What could be so important to guard—other than a VIP prisoner, perhaps the last airbender, known to be traveling with the Avatar?

The four guards posted at the door are promisingly slow and dull. He lures them out one by one with deliberate clamor and strings them up like smoked rooster-pig hams with some conveniently placed chains on the ceiling (perhaps there are so many prisoners that they need to keep spare chains around?). It's interesting that the drill sergeants never teach their charges to be on the lookout for attacks from above. He hasn't even had the opportunity to draw his swords and let steel taste blood. Well, best to keep things that way.

He slices the padlock on the door and kicks it open. The room appears empty, and for a moment, he fears he's been duped, that Aang isn't here at all, until his eyes track the movement of a figure in its darkest recesses.

Aang looks up, and Zuko feels the temperature drop several degrees as cold grey eyes land on him, devoid of any recognition.

 _What have they done to you?_

Aang rears his head back in a preparation for a colossal air blast that Zuko's seen him do many times—it's rather all he can do with his limbs restrained. Only instead of producing a current that knocks Zuko off his feet, he manages a sort of hacking inhale and a gasp that's more choking for air than anything else.

Zuko lifts his mask, revealing a glimpse of his face before dropping it again. "Aang, it's me!"

His eyes widen, but he still says nothing, incapable of forming any words, it seems. Zuko approaches with trepidation. Voiceless and restrained, Aang seems… smaller, more vulnerable. Several tentative steps away, he's finally close enough to confirm what he feared. A ring of bruises covers his bare throat, staining his skin a visceral purple. A nauseating scene flashes to his mind's eye—greedy hands gripping Aang by the throat and squeezing without remorse, blood pooling beneath his skin, making the act of drawing breath excruciating.

"Zuko."

It takes him a second to register this sound as his name. He meets Aang's eyes, and his heart breaks a little.

"Shh, don't talk. We're going to escape from here, but it won't be easy. I'm going to get you out of these chains, okay?"

Aang sways a little unsteadily when Zuko cuts away the bonds supporting him, and Zuko takes an arm over his shoulders, guiding him towards the door. He pauses at the sound of Aang's voice, damaged as it is, but full of grit and resolution to have these words out now.

"Zuko, why?"

 _Why what?_ Remorse follows on the heels of fleeting irritation at the tense moment. _Why didn't I tell you? Why did I let you go? Why did I come for you at all?_

"I'll tell you everything later," he promises. One finger ghosts over Aang's bruised jaw line—an afterthought or a prelude? It depends on _if_ they get out of here or not, no matter what Zuko's false optimism says. "I'm going to try not to use any bending here. Zhao knows I'm the Avatar and that we're in the area. Let's just slip out of here quietly and avoid rousing any suspicion."

They move silently through the empty halls of the fortress. Zhao's hubris does them a world of favors, though he won't know it until it's too late. He's on the tail end of his speech as they emerge into the innermost courtyard. Everyone's still distracted, good. They make for the ladder up to the wall. He lets Aang go up first, worried that the other won't have the strength to keep up. It's slow going, and more than once, Zuko wonders if they should just call Appa and bust their way out.

No—it's one thing to be at ease as the Avatar in public and quite another to announce it to an entire heavily armed hostile fortress. They've got to be stealthy. Without warning, an alarm rings out, and shouting commences.

Well, so much for that. They freeze, all hope of escaping easily abandoned. Up on the wall, a guard rushes to slash the rope ladder. _This is going to be a painful landing._

Or not. Aang twists in midair, and Zuko has a brief glimpse of his eyes set in determination before both of them are enveloped in a huge gyrus of air, falling towards the ground, and touching down rather lightly.

 _Air cushion._ Damn it, he needs adrenaline now, not nostalgia. Swords out now, and he hasn't forgotten their ways. The mask doesn't afford much in the way of peripheral vision, but Aang is there at his back, all aches and pains cast aside as he fills in Zuko's blind spots.

More soldiers are coming, though, and they'll soon be surrounded. As if reading his thoughts, Aang lashes out with a particularly forceful blast, clearing their path for a moment. He's gotten himself a pike, which he whirls between both palms like a glider. An emphatic jab skywards, and Zuko understands the intent a second before the act. He leaps and catches Aang around the waist just as he launches them into the air, the makeshift glider rotating wildly.

They rise above the commotion, Aang's airbending pushing them over the first two walls. He continues, and Zuko can feel his body shaking uncontrollably with the effort. He kicks aside an errant spear flying their way and notes how this throws them off balance. They're already far from aerodynamic; it'll be impossible to make it to the third and final wall, at this rate.

Indeed, they fall short of the wall just as Aang's arms give out, going limp with exhaustion. Zuko can do no more than slightly soften their landing as they find themselves on ground level again, largely outnumbered. A wave of fire rushes towards them, and Zuko prepares to derail it—only for Aang to suddenly rally and push Zuko behind him, instead taking the brunt of the attack on himself.

 _Oh right, no bending for me. Though at this point, does it matter if we don't make it out of here either way?_

 _No, I can't think like that. We've got to escape._

Aang's shield blocks the flames from reaching them, but the soldiers regroup almost immediately from their surprise and prepare to strike again. Then…

"Stop!" A voice rings out. Zhao has arrived.

The soldiers about to cut them down pause in confusion. Why would Zhao want to spare them?

"The Avatar must be captured alive!"

How does Zhao know?

He's not expecting it, which is almost certainly why Aang, even in his weakened condition, is able to yank the swords from Zuko's slackened grip and press the lethal blades to his throat.

Ah, that's how.

For just the space of a single, ragged breath, Aang rests his forehead against Zuko's shoulder, willing him to hear the words he can't say now, entreating him to _trust,_ in this knife-edge of moments.

And Zuko does. Because this is Aang holding his life in gentle hands, Aang who runs when the ghosts of the past rise up but stands steady _, now,_ when the present comes roaring down upon them. Aang who is equal parts human and transcendental, stuttering breath and divine wind in one, everything Zuko's never had and more. _Of course_ , he does.

The gate at their backs opens, slowly, painfully. Zuko lets himself be guided backwards by the unerring press of his own swords at his throat. The soldiers look on grimly as they clear the gate, still within sight of the wall. Pohuai stares back at them, sullen and resentful that anyone could leave it unscathed. Zhao watches their escape, his face lined like the cracks of a pot fired for too long in the kiln. The glory and honor of his big day have been all but subsumed by this incident. Zuko smiles, and behind the mask, it feels like a guilty secret.

But why should he feel guilty about betraying his country thus? This is war, and all warfare is deception.

He realizes, a split second too late, that Zhao knows this too and is planning to act accordingly. An arrow whistles past his head, and foolishly, he thinks it must be a novice archer with terrible aim. Then Aang falls to the ground behind him, swords clattering uselessly from a lifeless grip.

 _No_. Surely not—he can't be. Dead, that is.

In the blind fray of a thick dust cloud, Zuko throws himself to the ground beside Aang; he has to be sure. He can't lose this too. Trembling fingers trace the vein of that fragile neck, already so abused, but there! A faint murmur is enough for Zuko to ascertain that Aang has only been knocked unconscious, thank God.

They're going to be all right.

* * *

 **A/N:** Brief notes on the chapter: archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/21584009


	11. In Earnest Suppliance

**ZUKO**

"Tea?" Zuko asks softly, not wanting to disturb Aang's sleep. He'd been unconscious during the whole trip back to the herbalist's conservatory.

Toph turns toward him as he enters the room carrying a tray with three cups and a kettle. "I'll pour my own, thanks."

He lets her, setting the tray down by Aang's bedside. Fragrant jasmine steam perfuses the air, following him as he retreats to the other side of the room and tries not to pace along the wall.

"You don't have to lurk there in the corner like a monster in the shadows." Toph leans against the bed frame, ankles crossed, sipping delicately from her cup. She's the picture of studied nonchalance, the opposite of Zuko crawling with nerves right now.

"I just… I hate to see him like this," he admits. "When we were fleeing Pohuai, I was scared he wouldn't make it."

"Let me see if I have this right. You've had all manner of spirits and people, including me, trying to kill you ever since you became the Avatar, but this is the thing that actually scares you?"

"Don't laugh," he mutters, only a little irritated.

"I wasn't going to. Just pointing out something that even you might not have realized yet. By the way, Sleeping Beauty's awake," Toph announces, seemingly apropos of nothing. "His breathing's changed," she explains in response to Zuko's confused silence. "How are you feeling, Twinkletoes?"

Several long moments pass before Aang actually opens his eyes and summons the strength to roll his head in the direction of the earthbender standing at his bedside.

"Like I flew through a tornado," he answers belatedly, his voice still sandpaper. "Where are we?"

"In an abandoned city, in the house of a crazy old lady who feeds her cat flowers. She does a pretty mean remedy for motion sickness, though, so she can't be all that crazy. I wonder if she has anything to treat lovesickness."

In his half-delirious state, Toph's remark probably goes over his head, which Zuko might or might not count as a blessing.

"Where's Zuko?"

"Oh, what, I'm not a nice enough sight to wake up to?"

Aang manages a weak snort of amusement which quickly turns into a painful cough. Zuko sighs, unpeels himself from the far wall where he'd been resting, too unsure of his reception to venture any nearer. "Over here."

At the sound of his voice, Aang turns his head over to the other side, an agonizingly slow process, to seek him out. "Could you please give us a moment, Toph?"

"Sure. Have all the moments you like." She turns for the door but pauses and tilts her head at Zuko, meaning clear: _Please get your heads on straight for once and talk things out like adults. Using words, yes?_

He nods, a little impatiently, and she must sense it, leaving them alone. He approaches Aang tentatively, wondering if he's ever taken ten more hesitant steps in his life. The Agni Kai comes to mind immediately, but he thinks that those steps towards his humiliation and banishment should have been the most exultant of his life. They brought him to the one before him now, after all.

It's a little disconcerting to be staring down at Aang for once, so he kneels by the bed to put their heads on a level, awaiting some kind of verdict, an indictment, a curse, a reprieve, _something_. He focuses his gaze on the floor. His hands clutch at each other, desperate to reach out but terrified of rejection.

"I'm sorry, Zuko."

He raises his eyes, not expecting to hear this. "Sorry? For… what?"

Aang smiles, just barely. "For running away and leaving you, remember? And for giving you hell just because of your heritage. And for getting myself captured so you had to come rescue me. Did you forget? I thought I was the one who got hit on the head."

He's this close to his deathbed and still trying to make jokes. _This is how I fell._ The long speech leaves still more cracks in his broken voice. Zuko reaches for the kettle to pour some tea. He helps him sit up, and warm skin under his fingertips grounds him slightly, helps reinforce the reality that his best friend is here with him again, alive and well (more or less), and that he hasn't lost him.

"Thanks." He takes the cup and drinks. "You never realize how much you miss things like water and air until they're forcibly withheld from you."

At this proximity, the dark bruises stand out like blights on his skin. Zuko feels a fury mounting in him at the sight of them that threatens to wipe out his hearing and his thoughts in anger, at Zhao's complete lack of humanity that allowed him to lay a hand on Aang. His hands, lying flat on the bed, clench into fists, wanting to lash out but finding no appropriate outlet. He rests his forehead on his arms, afraid that otherwise the simmering rage in his eyes will spill out and destroy what they're trying to rebuild.

"It's okay," Aang says quietly, noting Zuko's distress. "Zhao wanted to get some information on you, stuff like where is the Avatar now? What are his plans regarding the war? Are there any more surviving Air Nomads? Of course I wouldn't tell anything to such a rude man."

It seems airbenders take refuge in gallows humor, and if he weren't so livid, Zuko would probably be crying at the way his perfect airbender is offering comfort when _he's_ the one who's wounded and war-torn.

"I was really offended. He should at least have asked me some questions about myself before trying to choke the answers out of me. But seriously, I'm so sorry. I wish you didn't have to see me like that."

He feels Aang's gaze on him, curious in the lengthening silence. He raises his head and takes several deep, long breaths to steady his voice. "I'm the one who should be sorry," he finally says. The words are inadequate, but he has nothing else to show for how he feels. "Sorry that I didn't tell you about my past, that you had to find out like that. It was never my intention to tear us apart. I can't ask you to forgive me, but please, Aang, I beg of you, give me a second chance."

There. He's done it, bared his soul, his every heartstring on display for the snapping. Spirits save him. Aang looks down at him thoughtfully, before declaring, "Nope. Can't do that."

His heartstrings snap. The world teeters out of alignment; the poles fall into the sea, quakes split the ground, everything is _wrong—_

"I mean, I can't give you a second chance because you haven't screwed up the first one," he clarifies on second thought, as if this were perfectly obvious from the outset. "You had a reason for what you did, and I understand why you thought I would want to leave you forever. But even before you rescued me, I already knew: I couldn't do that. I'd already made up my mind to come back."

He leans forward, pulls the other into a hug, two whole hearts beating opposite each other, not to be parted. "You have to know now: I'll never leave you."

 _Never._

"You idiot." Zuko throws everything he can't say into the hug. The last time he hugged anyone was probably before he was banished. "Don't do that to me again."

"I won't."

* * *

 **AZULA**

 _By decree of Fire Lord Ozai, Crown Princess Azula will remain confined to her quarters in the palace indefinitely for falsifying the nature of her identity as the Avatar; conspiring against the Fire Nation with a foreign national; and attempting to leave the grounds against imperial orders. Violation of this decree in the form of any effort to leave the designated radius will result in further penalties, to be determined by the Fire Lord. Retraction of this decree may be issued by the Fire Lord at any time._

She rereads the decree for perhaps the hundredth time in two weeks of house arrest. The scroll no longer springs back into its tight roll but lies flat from being unrolled so often. The words haven't changed, though, and they continue to leave her with no answers regarding when she will be released, what will happen to her, or what's happened to Haru.

They'd been caught leaving the palace under the cover of night. Azula hadn't underestimated the level of security at the perimeter, but for some reason that night, they were apprehended by more than the usual amount of guards watching over the royal family's safety. Haru was bundled off somewhere else, probably the holding cells for keeping prisoners of war, while she was returned (under highly effortful struggles, she reminds herself) to her own rooms, with the one change being that she's now guarded day and night. There is no leaving the compound without attracting attention.

She drops the paper over the side of the couch where she lies, not having moved for who knows how long. She no longer bothers her mind with inconsequential things like time, food, sleep, her appearance, anything at all, except the chance that she might get out of this predicament relatively unscathed. This whole time, no word has come from the Fire Lord at all, except for this decree, delivered a few hours post-incident. Every day, a different guard brings her food at set times, which she generally ignores. A knock sounds on the door—that's probably dinner.

"Princess Azula?" The guard enters hesitantly, possibly still in awe in spite of her state of disarray. Well, that's something. "The Fire Lord has summoned you to appear before him immediately."

That's definitely not dinner. She sits up rapidly, stars briefly popping behind her eyes at the change in elevation (should've had lunch). "Right now?" she demands, then berates herself internally; _obviously,_ immediately means now.

The guard takes pity on her. "We have a few minutes before we must make haste there. I'll wait outside."

She's halfway to her dresser mirror and picking up her hairbrush before he hurries out. The Fire Lord has summoned her. She can't help but remember what happened the last time a member of the royal family was summoned to meet with him under similar circumstances.

 _No, that won't happen. If he wanted to banish me, I'd be gone already. He won't treat me like Zuko. He can't afford to._

AAA

Azula enters the throne room, steps echoing timidly on the vast, empty floor as she walks towards the throne. The Fire Lord sits elevated above everything else in the chamber, a dark figure framed by the regal arch behind him, imposing even through the wall of fire before him. Everything is as she remembers it from five years ago, when she and Zuko were just children, pawns in their father's plots. That part hasn't changed. She bows once before the throne and awaits Ozai's response.

"Do you know why I asked for you today, Princess Azula?" His tone is unreadable.

She inclines her head into an expression of appropriate chastisement, though it is a far cry from how she truly feels about the man before her.

"To hand down punishment for defying your orders, Father." Hopefully her honesty will lessen the degree of said punishment. His business-like attitude makes it clear that no manner of shameless begging or apologizing will alter her verdict.

"No," he says simply. "Azula, come here. Sit." He rises from his seat and steps aside, beckoning to her.

She does as he bids, bewildered as she ascends the steps. The wall of flames dies down to allow her to stand beside her father. To her amazement, he steps down from the dais and leaves her there alone, walking away until he stands where she was just moments ago. He looks up at her as if she is the sovereign, but she feels only more belittled as she sits like a child between the finely carved pillars of the throne's arch.

"As someone who will one day come into this kingdom, you should familiarize yourself with the view from on the throne and from below it."

 _What am I supposed to see besides your judgmental face, Father?_

"You are the Fire Lord." His back is to her; he now stands farther away, between the third and fourth pillars from the throne, but his voice carries in the absence of the crackling of the flames. "Show me what you would show your loyal supplicants when they enter your presence."

 _He thinks I'm weak,_ she realizes. _He thinks I'm not strong enough to be his successor, to broadcast the image of an infallible ruler._

With inspired strokes, she ignites the long gutters before the throne so that the wall of flame rises anew, higher and hotter than her father's had been. She smiles proudly—that will show him. She may not be the Avatar, but she has this.

Through the blinding haze of the fire, she struggles to make out Ozai's shape, but the moment she locks eyes onto it, the air crackles, and suddenly, the entire throne room is illuminated by a cold white blaze forking through the air towards her, seemingly faster than light should be able to move. She throws herself out of the way, sliding across the floor in an ungraceful heap just as the lightning strikes the arch above the throne, instantly cracking it and raining down worthless gilded pieces.

"Where do the stars go during the day, when the sun is in the sky?" Ozai asks conversationally as if he hadn't just shot lightning at his heir apparent. "Do they flee, overcome with awe at its fire? No, they remain where they are, obscured by the sun's brightness, but they reappear when night falls."

Azula remains huddled silently on the floor, doubting his next move, the wall of flames she'd conjured now vanquished.

"If I were an assassin here to kill you today, your flames of vanity would not have protected you; quite the opposite. You saw only the beauty of your raw talent and didn't think of how they hindered you from seeing threats close at hand. Likewise, you omitted to think things through when you tried to abscond with that Earth brat on some fool's quest to find the Avatar."

Now there is heat and anger in his voice. She bites her tongue against the desire to ask what will happen to Haru. She can't let him know her weaknesses. Her own fate is unclear enough.

"Don't worry. No harm will come to him if you know your place," he reassures her, slightly menacingly, she thinks. "But even if the two of you had found the Avatar, what would you have done? The Avatar's power is limitless. You could not have hoped to best him with brute force. Do you remember your first firebending master, Azula?"

She clears her throat, nerves wrecked and voice shaking, speaking to the floor beneath her. "Master Kunyo, of course. You banished him to the colonies."

"All because he refused to teach you the way to make the biggest fire blasts." Ozai smiles without mirth and approaches the throne again. "You were a willful child, and I let it go at the time. I see Zhao has more than compensated for Kunyo's deficiencies in your education. But his teachings will afford you little success. To face the Avatar requires what you currently lack: precision. I have neglected your training, but no longer."

She dares to look up in surprise at the promise in his words. Is this… her reprieve?

"I will train you personally. Your firebending, and more importantly your mentality, requires honing and finesse before you are ready to capture the Avatar."

There's a flicker of hope that her father will forgive and forget, that she'll get a second chance to prove herself and please the Fire Lord, but… what's the catch?

"Father, if I may ask… whom have you determined to actually be the Avatar?"

He tells her. It is as if all fire and warmth has been leached from her body, as if the Avatar spirit, which never was hers to begin with, has left her destitute and barren.

* * *

 **A/N:** I cannot believe I have actually finished this book, much later than I thought I would, haha. Oh my god. I'm weirdly really proud of myself (now if only I could say that about most other aspects of my life). Definitely I can recognize parts that weren't great, but also parts that were stellar and that I wouldn't be ashamed to show people outside the fandom. This is plot-wise the most complex thing I've ever written, and wow, I am still in awe of it all.

The next book is posted - check my profile page for the link - it's called _too cold to shiver_ , and introduces the Water tribe siblings :D and Zuko learns waterbending.

Finally, thank you all for reading - I can't say this enough. Every time I get a comment, I just have to stop what I'm doing and sit down because I'm smiling too much to function. Like, someone actually liked this thing enough to type words specially intended to express to me that they liked it that much? ? How ? ? ? Thank you so much for doing what you do. You're awesome. I wouldn't have gotten this far without you, actually. Ahhhh okay, I need to stop now before I get too emotional. *wanders away to cry tears of joy*

Until next time!

Notes: archiveofourown dot org /works/7019827/chapters/21786944


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